Bubbleman's Tooth Hurty Experimentorama

Smoking golden seaweed cherrys.

2006-05-19T00:40:00.000-07:00

So here's another update. Been up to a bunch of little things here and there but nothing too spectacular.

Sakura viewing!

As you should all know by now the seasons here are different. So it's spring here at the moment! My town in particular loves Spring because we have many flower fields which brings many tourists to our little town. So i guess you could say that all the locals have a SPRING in their steps! (ROFL!)

Another popular past time in spring is going to see the sakura (or what we like to call "cherry blossoms" but i want to use the Japanese word so i appear to be more "japanese" and cool) While my town also has its fair share of sakura, there are other areas which are even better so we decided to head over to Kamakura to check it out (check out the chicken, chicken...) They are only in full bloom for a couple of weeks so you have to plan your trip perfectly but we aren't really all that into planning things so we ended up going a little early. But as you can see, it was still pretty freaking fab! Check it out (chicken, chicken...)

These were taken by Sarah's camera as i forgot to feed Snappy before we went so his batteries died :-(

I did manage to catch some local sakura action but didn't have Snappy with me so there are no photos. Oh, and when i say i was able to "catch" sakura i don't mean i literally caught the petals as they were falling to the ground, i mean that i was able to see them.

Seaweed cutting festival!

One of the things i love most about being in Japan are all the odd surprises you get. An example of such a surprise is when i was told we were going to have a seaweed cutting festival. Now Japan really do enjoy their festivals but one for cutting seaweed was totally unexpected but also very cool. Almost as cool as using Japanese words in your blog! Yes THAT cool!

So what happens is the students play a few games first then we head off to the beach and cut seaweed off the rocks which is sold as (very tasty) food at the market. And the money we make is used by the school to buy sporting equipment and stuff like that.

This time Snappy was fed and in fine spirits and caught all the action. So i'll let him take us through the events:

So before we got started the students played a few games. This is the volleyball game where the kids and to stop the ball from touching the ground for as long as possible

This is the tasty seaweed we want to cut. It just looks like some typical Aussie seaweed only it's growing on rocks rather than floating around your feet!

Here's the kids cutting da weed:

As you can see they do it with knives. Pulling it out by the roots is a no-no as the roots don't taste so good and it won't grow back if you do that you silly silly dumb-dum bumbly head!

The kids also managed to find some crabs, sea urchins, sea slugs (one metre long ones!), lobsters and octopus. while australia's beaches may look better, japan's beaches seem to be much more full of life. if you think about how small japan and it's coast is then it's population and how much fishing they do... well it's pretty amazing there is so much fish left! Anyways, i'm getting off track here. One kid gave me a Sea Urchin (or "uni" in japanese, yo i'm cool!) which i cracked open and ate. as you can see from the photos below they are quite spiky! and the spikes move around in the palm of your hand when you hold it!

The orange stuff inside is the tasty stuff. the rest is just guts. it's got a really good taste too... kinda salty but not too salty!

Below is all the seaweed we cut. It's not eaten raw, they cook it (i think!) so it's black when you eat it.

Golden Week!

For many Japanese this is the best time of the year. It's 3 consecutive public holidays (wed-fri) which equates to a 5 day holiday! And as many of you know, Japanese people work VERY hard! Too hard if you ask me but you didn't ask did you? Well i've answered anyway! HAH! So 5 days off is a big deal! But many people (including the teachers at my school) work anyway. But most people do get the time off work so they all go off and travel. I considered going to see some new wonderful part of Japan but hotel costs are very high during this time and it's also really crowded. For example, a 4 hour bus ride can take you 8 hours because of all the traffic!

So i decided to spend my golden week in a very Dave fashion. I went to Tokyo twice to go clubbing and chilled out the rest of the time. Great times! And for those of you who care, i'm gonna run through who i saw and what i thought of them:

Steve Bug (22/4/06)

OK so this was the weekend before golden week. Do you think i care? huh? I'm gonna mention it anyways.... This guy is a minimal house/techno DJ from Detroit who has been doing his thing for a while now. He's always been highly regarded and even deemed worthy to be mentioned in the same breath as the likes of Richie Hawtin. But i just hadn't had the chance to see him in the right setting before this show. He played for almost 6 hours and it was brilliant! Played a diverse but cohesive mix of minimal with some funk and quirky moments to keep you on your toes. I'll give him a 9/10

Luomo (2/5/06)
Here's another guy who is very highly regarded by many (some claim he was one of the first to produce glitch-house) but i've not really been into much of his output. But he had a reputation for great live sets so decided to check him out. And i can see why many people love his work. It was a great live set but not exactly my sort of thing. Was still very enjoyable though. 7/10

Alex Smoke (5/5/06)
One of the hottest names in techno at the moment. His recent album has been praised by many and for good reason too. I'm not quite as into him as many others in the techno world but respect the guy a lot so decided to check him out. And i'm glad i did! This was 1 hour of intelligent and subtle live minimal techno that didn't impress everyone as it wasn't always overly dancefloor friendly but i really got into it! 8.5/10

Back in action...

2006-04-16T06:24:00.000-07:00

I'm back! So why the long absence? I'm not sure really... i just never got around to updating my blog... I wasn't really inspired despite still having a great time and very much enjoying my time in Japan. Also, i somehow seemed to be staying busy while not having much work to do... not sure if that makes sense though!

One thing i'm sure it has done is lift anticipation for my next post. I've pretty much earned the reputation of the Axel Rose of the blogesphere and i plan to take advantage of this by posting some overhyped but ultimately unfulfilling and poorly spelt/developed rants. So yes it will be business as usual.

So it's been almost 4 months since i last updated so i'll just run over all the major stuff i've been up to since then.

Jan/Feb - Chirs visits!

My mate chris visited for around a month so we got to hang out a fair bit while he did his own thing in between. needless to say it was great to have him in town! One thing i managed to achieve while he was in town was get very sick! easily the sickest i've ever been. And i don't mean sick in terms of "awesome" (which i tend to be fully on an almost permanent basis) i mean the bad sick. Not sure exactly what was wrong but it was either a nasty cold/fever or maybe some sort of respiratory infection. It knocked me out for a week which really sucked but luckily Chirs (as he will now be known as due to the above typo that i can't be assed fixing) wasn't effected by it and we managed to go to Kyoto!

Kyoto used to be the capital city of Japan and for this reason there are many old beautiful shrines and temples there. It's definitely one of the #1 tourist spots in Japan and for good reason too! we went in winter which isn't really seen as the best time to go but it did mean there was some snow about which added to the beauty of it all. Snappy was there but as a homage to Chirs i've decided to use his photos instead. As you can see, he likes to include himself in the photo...

And here are some other Chirs related photos that i like:

This is me looking very excited about getting a chocolate banana

And these next two are of Chirs and I being tools:

Another highlight of the Chirs visit was seeing Sven Vath dj. He's one of the godfathers of techno and he most certainly didn't disappoint. and he managed to make that new tech/trance sound, which is fastly becoming a popular alternative to the minimal techno, actually sound good. one mustn't understate just how hard it is to make anything associated with trance sound listenable let alone enjoyable. Here's a picture someone took which you an see Chirs and myself in. quite a good pic actually! I'm the guy in the orange t-shirt with my hands in the air.

March/April

So lets jump ahead to late march (ie a few weeks ago) Why the big jump in time? Well i did do some interesting stuff in between but i'm gonna cut straight to the better stuff! And i didn't take my camera with me when i did the other things and i'm one of those bad writers who cannot hold somebodys attention (including my own) without gimmicks like photos and stuff like that.

A couple of weeks ago i travelled to Ishigaki and Iriamote. Where is that you ask? Well it's near Okinawa... where is that? Well Okinawa is a small japanese island that's popular because of it's warm weather and great beaches. However, one common complaint i hear about Okinawa is that despite its definite good points, it's getting a little overly urbanised. For this reason we decided to visit 2 of the smaller islands nearby. And to cut down on costs we camped! I went with Justin and Sarah, 2 other ALTs from my area. Luckily, Sarah has plenty of travel/camping skills and Justin has some excellent Japanese skills (in case you are wondering, the only skills i had to offer was stupid jokes and the ability to fart loudly) so everything went really smoothly... mostly because of my farting though. that was a vital! fartastically so... bwahahaha!

Anyways, i had a freaking brilliant time! Let's letting Snappy let tell the story.... let's!

This is the path we would walk down to get from the campsite to the beach. and those 2 people are justin and sarah. Yes that's right, we camped near the beach. Do you want to see the beach? OK snappy, you know what to do...

Here's the beach!

One morning i couldn't sleep so i went and watched the sunrise on the beach. I'm meant to be a macho guy who doesn't like walks on the beach and sunrises and stuff like that so i'm not going to comment on if i actually enjoyed the sunrise or not.

The smallest of the islands we stayed on was not only small but also full of dense forest that is too thick for people to enter. There were some parts we could see like this waterfall.

Both the islands were surrounded by coral and many tropical fish. You could pretty much take a few steps into the ocean and see dozens of them swimming around your feet! But rather than post a picture that is clear to see Snappy has decided to select this one that was taken from one of those glass boats. if you look closely you can see a clown fish (ie the fish from Finding Nemo) I don't have any proof but i GUARANTEE that that is actually Nemo from the movie. I did get him to sign an autograph for me but i accidently left it behind. So you'll just have to take my word for it.

So i've limped my way through my first blog entry in 4 months... Will this have broken my duck and allow me to blog freely from now on? Or will it be the only BuBBleman bleep on the Blogesphere radar in 2006? Who knows! I do have golden week coming up in early May followed by a seminar in Tokyo for all teachers who are staying here for a 2nd year like myself. So there is much funness to be had and therefore things to write about. but i do like being lazy so maybe you'll be hearing from me again in around november or something or longer...

So i hope you all have a great easter and Christmas over 2006 and 2007. I'll see you all in around 2017 or something

this post is crap and boring

2006-01-13T05:01:00.000-08:00

The title says it all really... Just thought i'd update it and give the people what they want... But this is what happens when i update my blog when i have nothing interesting to say... I just ramble on about nothing and it's really boring. So i hope all you BuBBle-hatters learn your lessons from this... Because this post is going to be boring!

I had a couple of weeks off and did some interesting things but nothing significant enough to report on. Hung out with the other english teachers who had stayed in japan on christmas which was good. Hung out at a friend's place for new years eve... And just had a good relaxing time. Got my friend chris heading up in a week so i can do some more exciting stuff then.

And that's all i got to say really. I'll have something more interesting to say later on i guess...

Snappy has some things to add so i'll get those out of the way then that will be it.

Here's a picture of me after not shaving for a little while. I was going to go longer without a shave but one of my younger students said i looked scary and intimidating so i didn't want to freak all the kids out once i got back from holidays. Also, it was itchy

It's not meant to snow in my town but check it out! It's one of the coldest winters ever here. I think before this winter it had snowed 1 or 2 times in the past 3 years but it's already snowed over 5 times this year. And that's before feb which is supposed to be the coldest month of the year! So yeah, it's like really cold and stuff.

I told you this post would be boring... But don't worry i'll get some inspiration soonishly.

A post about music in 2005

2005-12-30T18:30:00.000-08:00

Well as i (sorta) promised here are my favourite albums of the year. As you will see, i did listen to a fair bit of new music and i thought some of you maybe interested in what i was listening to exactly... But i'm also aware that most of you won't care in the slightest which is fine! I'm kinda bored at the moment and i decided doing this would entertain me for a while.

You will notice that there is a fair bit of techno and metal on the list. This is mostly because 2005 was one of the best years for this sort of music for a very long time. Many of you know my love of techno but black metal might come as a surprise. Just keep in mind that the whole "i listen to negative music because i'm a negative person" line of thought is pretty much a load of crap. I listen to metal music sometimes for the same reasons why i might watch an action or scary movie sometimes... it's able to take a hold of you and really engage you which is what i love about it. So don't worry, i'm happy and positive!

This isn't all i listened to this year, i also listened to a lot of late 70s / early 80s punk and electronic music. And some classic rock stuff as well... But when it came to 2005 releases, techno, metal, ambient and experimental were the often the way to go.

So here it is, and with some descriptions too! Let's see if you are capable of reading the whole thing without falling asleep ;-)

1. Jamie Lidell - Multiply
A pasty white guy from England who is somehow able to sound like a genuine American soul singer... Has an amazing voice and managed to string together 10 perfect tracks to make the best album of the year. Highly recommended to everyone... anyone could grow to love this sort of music as it's so accessible and uplifting and fun! Brilliant stuff!

2. MIA - Arular
A Sri Lankan rapper who has spent most of her life running from terrorists and racial oppression is able to make a party album that gives the mind and the feet something entertaining. Probably the most unique album of the year but also very poppy.

3. Isolee - We Are Monster
Best techno album of the year. But this is techno for listening to at home as well as the dancefloor. Manages to put guitar and other traditional sounds into the tracks but in such a subtle way that it sounds natural rather than forced gimmickry. Will be remembered as one of the all time classic techno albums...

4. Audion - Suckfish
Now this is techno that is more for the dancefloor! Really nasty acid techno with some industrial and minimal techno moments too. I'm a sucker for anyone who can get noisy bleeps and frequencies and place them into a more traditional aesthetic which is exactly what this album does.

5. Broadcast - Tender Buttons
I've always loved this band but up until now they hadn't been able to make a truly consistent album. Think 60s lounge/rock with some electronic noodlings and bursts of My Bloody Valentine shoegazer fuzzy bits. And some beautiful melodies and female vocals.

6. Eluvium - Talk Amongst The Trees
Best ambient album i've heard for a long time. Comprised of 10-20 minute long tracks which contain long melodic drones and string samples. The kind of music that makes you feel like you are floating and makes you lose track of time. Perfect for the Japanese winter too!

7. Sunn O))) - Black One
Here's the first of the black metal albums i was talking about. in one track the singer is locked in a coffin with a microphone then placed into a hearse! but gimmicks aside, this album has everything you need from a drone/black metal album... just don't play it at night time unless you really want to scare yourself!

8. Magik Markers - I Trust My Guitar Ect
Some good quality noisy garage rock with heavy influences from the late 70s No Wave scene. So there is plenty of lo-fi noisy distorted guitars which i love! The amount of raw energy the band generates is really amazing... much more than any of these modern so called "punk" bands you hear nowadays.

9. Matias Aguayo - Are You Really Lost
Another techno highlight. This is full of those slow burning tracks that roll along nicely. Matias manages to make a varied album using a rather narrow niche which must be pretty hard to pull off. So cohesive... one of those albums you just have to keep playing once you start until it's over.

10. Roisin Murphy - Ruby Blue
Singer from Moloko teams up with Matthew Herbert and the results are surprisingly brilliant. Excellent chilled jazz/soul tracks with hints of glitch and house. And the songs are very well written too. Get this along with Jamie Lidell and you have your summers covered... Roisin for the nighttime and Jamie for the daytime!

11. Richie Hawtin - Transitions
Best techno mix CD of the year... Manages to play snippits of 150 or so tracks in 90 minutes! Richie is the new guru of techno.

12. Gang Gang Dance - God's Money
Mixes tribal music with freak-folk and hazy ambient soundscapes... and the singer sounds like Kate Bush! great combination!

13. Pier Bucci - Familia
One of the new techno producers from Chillie comes out of nowhere (well to me at least) with some brilliant glitchy funky minimal techno

14. Optimo - How To Kill The DJ Vol 2
Imagine 2 guys with ADD and a really varied music taste making a mix CD. Plays everything from classic punk to techno to children's choir music!

15. Animal Collective - Feels
Already well established New York "freak-folk / psychedelic / whatever" group release their best album yet.

16. Birchville Cat Motel - Chi Vampires
One man band who combines ambient with drone and black metal on an album which is beautiful but also a little haunting

17. Chris Liebing and Speedy J - Metal 3000
The best thing i can say about this album is that it's ALMOST as good as seeing Speedy J live... and that's a big call. Banging techno at it's best

18. Mu - Out Of Breach (Manchester's Revenge)
Mu's 1st album is my favourite of all time and while this isn't as good it's still freaking amazing. Imagine a much crazier Yoko Ono backed by a band of malfunctioning robots on halloween... Yep, it's that good!

19. Abe Duque - So Underground It Hurts
Yet another excellent techno album. This one combines minimal techno with house and acid music... Also a contender for album title of the year.

20. Marc Leclair - Musique Pour 3 Femmes Enceintes
A concept album inspired by the various stages of pregnancy. Music is mostly ambient with moments glitchy techno and Chain Reaction-esque melodies.

21. Plot To Blow Up The Eiffel Tower - Love in the Fascist Brothel
Take a hardcore punk band and a jazz band and get them to jam together and this is what you get. It's very weird (but in a good way) to hear a punk track with a sax instead of a guitar solo!

22. Black Dice - Broken Ear Record
Sounds like the music a tribe of those T1000s from the Terminator movies would make. Plenty of metallic drums with industrial noise. Very tasty!

23. Junior Senior - Hey Hey My My Yo Yo
Best silly pop album of the year. Remember that "d-d-don't stop the beat! come on everybody and move your feet!" track? this is their new album! and with a member of the B-52s! So naturally, it's fantastic!

24. The Magik Markers - Feel The Crayon
2nd album from these guys to make my list. This is like their other one but more lo-fi and noisy. Actually, i think it's their original demo they set to record labels...

25. Various Artists - The Sexual Life Of The Savages
A compilation of Brazilian punk groups. Apparently punk music is really popular there... and with good stuff like this you can see why!

26. Konono - Congotronics
Afro-beat group from the Congo who are so poor they have to make their own speakers out of old cars! Really great drumming and the textures they get out of the speakers adds another dimension to the music.

27. Alex Smoke - Incommunicado
Techno with a strong sense of melody... so much so that this album is definitely more suited to home listening than at a club

28. Nine Horses - Snow Borne Sorrow
Good crooning vocals with some jazzy chilled music. but there is something about it that makes it better than other jazzy chilled stuff... can't put my finger on what exactly...

29. Khanate - Capture / Release
Really dark and tormented black metal. Apparently the vocalist has been known to pass out when he sings because he screams so loud! really intense stuff.

30. Kraftwerk - Minimum Maximum
Live Kraftwerk album that has all their best hits that have been tastefully modernised without losing any of the goofy electro cheesiness.

31. Sebastian Tellier - Politics
Imagine Air (that french band) but a little more unpredictable and unstable. Mixes soft french rock with retro 80s cheese and lush strings.

32. Various Artists - Run The Road
Compilation of "grime" music which is like England's answer to the American hip hop sound. Very unique and intense... lets just say that these British guys have a lot to say

33. Edan - Beauty And The Beat
My favourite hip-hop album of the year. Some really good tracks with some excellent use of sampling.

34. Vashti Bunyan - Lookaftering
My favourite "traditional" folk album of the year. I love her vocals and the use of harps and strings makes it all very lush and nice to listen to.

35. Optimo - Psych Out
Mix CD that combines old acid techno with 70s psychedelic and some more modern tracks... and all these genres manage to gel nicely.

36. Okkervil River - Black Sheep Boy
My favourite indie rock album of the year... Great emotive music and it's a concept album that doesn't come across as overly pretentious too which is a bonus.

37. Autechre - Untilted
One of my all time favourite groups has a partial return to form! A little patchy in parts but has some of the best experimental electronic music i've ever heard.

38. Adolf Noise (aka DJ Koze) - Wo Die Rammelwolle Fliegt
Renowned techno producer under an alias reserved for his quirkier relaxed material. Covers many genres but remains cohesive.

39. Koenjihyakkei - Angherr Shisspa
Oddly enjoyable. Mixes sped up prog rock with opera vocals and chants. Both enjoyable and amusing, always puts me in a good mood

40. Stewart Walker - Grounded in Existence
One of the gurus of minimal techno branches out into live instrumentation (well it sounds live to me) on this album. Nice stuff

41. Keith Fullerton Whitman - Multiples
Another great ambient album. Mixes guitar drones with various electronic modulators and other effects.

42. Boris - Akuma No Uta
Japanese black metalists who i've always intended to get more of. After hearing this album i'll make sure i get more of their stuff next year and perhaps see them live!

43. Superpitcher - Today
A mix CD that focuses on the moodier and more melodic side of minimal techno. Nothing spectacular but plays so smoothly which i think was the point of it in the first place.

44. Tujiko Noriko & Aoki Takamasa - 10
My favourite Japanese singer/songwriter is back! This isn't her best work but better than her last album. As some really good moments.

45. Richard Davis - Details
Some very lush tracks that sound like the Pet Shop Boys gone minimal techno. Really good use of vocals too.

46. Cristian Vogel - Station 55
Frustrating album as it's so varied and all over the place but there is no denying that there is some genius at work here. Some of the best tracks of the year can be found on this

47. TBA - Annule
Georgian (the country not the city) wife of one of my all time favourite techno producers (thomas brinkmann) Think Bjork gone ambient techno.

48. Earth - Hex: Or Printing In The Inferno
One of the all time metal greats put out an album that is anything but metal. this is more like post rock a la GSYBE and brilliantly executed too.

49. Deerhoof - The Runner's Four
Filled the gap left by Fiery Furnaces this year for quirky "kiddies on red cordial" indie pop/rock. All over the place but very enjoyable.

50. Thomas Brinkmann - Lucky Hands
Not his best album but still got more than enough quality "classic brinkmann" moments to keep me happy.

I can't be bothered describing the others but here they are:

51. Bob Drake - The Shunned Country
52. Kevin Blechdom - Eat My Heart Out
53. Tod Dockstader - Aerial
54. Gustav - Rettet Die Wale
55. Ladytron - Witching Hour
56. Kill Memory Crash - American Automatic
57. DJ Koze - Kosi Comes Around
58. Paavoharju - Yhä Hämärää
59. Justus Kohncke - Doppelleben
60. Roots Manuva - Awfully Deep

61. Delia Gonzalez & Gavin Russom - Days Of Mars
62. Ferenc - Fraximal
63. The Juan Maclean - Less Than Human
64. Tujiko Noriko - Blurred In My Mirror
65. Fiery Furnaces - EP
66. Kompakt - Total 6
67. Panico - Subliminal Kill
68. Robyn - Robyn
69. Dominik Eulberg - Kreucht & Fleucht
70. Kanye West - Late Registration

71. Biosphere - Dropsonde
72. Sakerock - Life Cycle
73. Lightning Bolt - Hypermagic Mountain
74. Menomena - Under An Hour
75. Architecture In Helsinki - In Case We Die
76. M.A.N.D.Y - Body Language
77. Sufjan Stevens - Come On Feel The Illinoise
78. Murcof - Remembranza
79. Jesu - Jesu
80. Jan Jelinek - Kosmischer pitch

81. Keiji Haino - Black Blues (soft)
82. Misc. - Like Morning In Your Eyes
83. Acid Mothers Temple and the Cosmic Inferno - Iao Chant from the Cosmic Inferno
84. Out Hud - Let Us Never Speak of it Again
85. The New Pornographers - Twin Cinema
86. Kano - Leave Home
87. Orthrelm - OV
88. Dandy Jack & The Junction - Los Siete Castigos
89. Why? - Elephant Eyelash
90. Jackson & His Computer Band - Smash

2005 - a tooth hurtyorama?

2005-12-24T17:28:00.000-08:00

So we are winding up to the end of the year... and just in time for the holidays i've gotten sick! but this isn't really such a bad thing as i didn't have much planed for the 2 week holiday anyway! so now instead of feeling like a loser being stuck at home i can be stuck at home for a reason! so i get to be all uncool at home yet still be cool. pretty cool huh?

hold on, this is my chance to be all dark and deep. i will spend christmas alone in my apartment! away from family and stuff. isn't being all reflective and depressing one of the more common things to do in blogs? so why am i being all positive? ok i'm going to try this again:

ooh wow i'm, like, really sad and stuff. the world hates me but i hate it too so who cares. my life is awash with blackness and bad thingies and stuff like that. and all this is really bad n stuff. it makes me feel torn apart and hate things. because i'm, like all dark and deep. wayyy too dark and deep for anyone to understand. So now that i've clearly established that i'm deeply depressed lets reflect on what i've been up to over the last 2 weeks:

I'm arty!!

As many of you may know, i suck at art. How many people get a "D" in art even if they try? In year 9 i did. I actually painted/sculpted/drew/whatever all the stuff i was supposed to but they were all so amazingly crap that i got a D. I'd go as far to say that i'm the worst artist ever.

But the school don't know this so they got me to make a poster of Australia. So how did it work out? I'll let you (with Snappy's assistance) decide:

It's not so bad don't you think? Worth much more than a "D" huh? I'm happy with it! It's colourful and educationful! Fully full of goodness! YUM!

Bonenkai (sic?)

You may recall me talking about my first "Enkai" a while back... for the forgetful readers out there, an Enkai is a Japanese drinking party. I had one with my fellow teachers after Sports Day. Well this time we had a BONenkai! My Japanese still sucks so i'm just going to assume that the BON means BIG! Actually i know for a fact that is wrong but i'm going to pretend that it is for the moment... so i had a BONenkai! That's right a BIG party! This is the sort of thing that most schools will have towards the end of the year. And it's soooo BON (ie BIG!) that it's too BIG (ie BON) for just a night out. We had this BONenkai at a traditional japanese hotel. Check out the room i had:

It's a traditional japanese hotel room apparently. i really appreciated being here because while my house is very BIG (ie BON) it's not very japanese. And check out the absolutely BON (ie BIG) feast we had!

And the food was really really good. Fully full of yummy goodness actually. And we had some quiz that i managed to play a part in my team winning:

Yeah who da man! Who number one? Me!!!

I managed to drink a little without getting too drunk and generally have a great night. Good times.

That's it for me.... I'm clearly scraping the bottom of my 2005 barrel to find something interesting to say/post... errr.... ahh i'll show you what i cooked for dinner last night. experimentoramas in the kitchen didn't take off but i should still prove that i can (almost) cook!

See that doesn't look so bad does it?? OK that's it... i'm spent! Merry christmas and a happy new year everyone!

Will perhaps post my top 50 or so albums of the year if i get bored... And as we all know, my music taste is really good, much better than the rest of you guys so you NEED me to tell you what you should be listening to.

Cya!

Toki Doki's trilogy

2005-12-09T20:26:00.000-08:00

So what have i been up to recently? Bloody heaps actually! You see folks, i went to Tokyo 3 weekends in a row and on each occasion had a marvelous time. So there will be a lot to take in.... are you all ready? Just like any AFL side, we are going to take it one weekend at a time. So here we go... look below.... don't be slow.... whikka whikka row!

Weekend 1 - Dance Drink Techno Salad!

You all remember those very cool looking folk that were at my party? You know? The ones i WOWED with my badass party hosting skillz? Well i took a trip down to Saitama which is like the inner suburbs of Tokyo (which, due to popular demand, we shall now call Toki Doki's for the duration of the post) to hang out with many of the Aussies and Yanks who traveled to my little town and were WOWED by my badass party hosting skillz. Yes that's right, they were WOWED. But i was WOWED in return because Tokyo has many places to visit that are just as badass as my party hosting skillz. I know that's hard to imagine but it's true... and i have evidence to back this up! So read on haters/doubters before you get all in my face and stuff.

Now as most of you know, i'm horrible with names of people and places. So i can't remember what this place was called... Actually, no that's not true! I, err, am doing this as a test! yeah, that's it, I wouldn't forget the name of this place! Do you think i'm stupid or something? No way! Not me! So this is, like, a quiz, and this is question 1. So you can post a comment here and if you guess the place name correctly you win, like, prizes and stuff.

But as you can see below it's a shrine and there are also heaps of shops where you can get all sorts of stuff ranging from yummy rice crackers to tacky yet cool toys to authentic yet expensive gifts. Twas a great place indeed. Smashing in fact. Smashingly smashing. The level of smashingness achieved was smashingly smashing.

So next we will have question number 2 in the quiz. I remember the name but i want to see if anyone else knows it... It was a big park, like Melbourne's Botanical Gardens but with shrines and stuff like that. And being autumn, we were able to see some dead leaves. Why is it that we find trees with dead stuff on them so pretty? Sure, the colours are nice but i can't think of any other time when people enjoy looking at dead stuff apart from watching zombie movies. Zombie movies are badass. As are autumn leaves... So it was great to be able to visit the park at this time.

Here are some pictures of things dying at the park.

We then went to Odaiba (remembered that name... ha!) which is one of those trendy places all the cool cats hang out. Why is it cool? Here's why:

How many places do you know that has the Statue Of Liberty? Well have you ever heard of a little place called New York? And isn't that place cool? If you answered yes then you are correct. If you answered no then you are not cool. So Odaiba is cool. Badass actually. Smashingly badass.

But it also has a ferris wheel! It's the biggest in Japan actually! Check it out:

Now for all those doubters and haters out there, keep in mind that this photo is not, i repeat, NOT to scale. So while it only looks about 10cm tall in the photo it is actually much bigger than that.

And we got some badass photos when we rode it too. it seems that if you are high up and take photos they start to look all cool and professional and totally badass. So we took some absolute rip snorters!

and as if this wasn't cool enough. i found the coolest random sign i've seen in Japan yet. "Dance Drink Techno Salad Rock n Roll" Man i love this sign! And this isn't the last you'll hear about this place... stay tuned and you'll see!

now those hardcore Snappy fans out there will notice that some of this pictures are not Snappites at all! This is because the aussie crew i was hanging out with (the very same crew i WOWED with my badass party hosting skillz) all had cameras of their own and we exchanged photos. As you'd imagine, Snappy is quite upset about this. But he was up against some superior cameras with badass zooms and lenses and stuff so what help did he have? I think his ego has been bruised quite substantially but i think he was starting to get a little arrogant don't you agree? But to avoid a Snappy strike i'll include a photo he took of the sunset as we were catching the bus to Toki Doki's:

so that's week 1 finished in the Toki Doki trilogy. let's move on the week 2....

Weekend 2 - We're Ointment!

So weekend 1 was a tourist adventure. But weekend 2 is a music adventure! It just so happened that 2 big concerts/raves/festivals/whatevers were on the same weekend! So let's start with friday shall we?? Friday was a dance festival called Electraglide! Which is like a smaller Big Day Out but with electronic artists... I guess you could say it's pretty close to Two Tribes in Australia. Here's who i saw and how i felt about them:

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Autechre - Brilliant! As you'd expect from the ae boys there was much splintery noise, fractured beats and warped melodies and it was all executed perfectly. But what surprised me was the structures they used were quite accessible and danceable despite all the craziness going on. Even the cute little j-kiddies with their glowsticks were getting into it! I've been wanting to see these guys for ages and they didn't disappoint.

Tiga - 3rd time i'd seen him and he was as good as always. If i was going to throw a party at my house and was able to spend all the money i wanted on a DJ i'd pick this guy. He's the perfect party dj as he plays cheesy, fun, poppy yet cool dance music with a few unexpected twists to keep you guessing. His set didn't quite have the consistency and flow of his previous efforts but it was still quality all the way! Made me dance my ass off :-)

Some crappy dj i forgot the name of - he was crap. really, really crap. let's not talk about him anymore ok?

Vitalic - He's produced some incredible tracks in his time and hearing those was a great experience. The crowd absolutely loved him too! Only problem was that some of his lesser tracks were a little uninspired in comparison and his transistion from track to track was a bit sloppy. But those highlights were so good he can be forgiven for that

Carl Cox - Much better than i expected. He's been around for ages now (maybe 20 years?) so he's got some excellent skills but his track selection was a little too vanilla for my liking. Still nice enough

Tower Tei - Saw a bit of him but wasn't impressed. He's responsible for Kylie Minogue's "German Bold Italic" and that "Groove is in the Heart" track so he isn't all bad. but his djing didn't do much for me

-----------

and that was the night. as you may all recall, i was quite fustrated by the crowd at the 2 events i'd been to in the past in japan but i'm happy to report that the crowd at the festival was excellent! They were all so enthusiastic and there was no annoying disruptive behavior. Overall it was a great night and one of the highlights of my time in Japan so far :-)

So that was friday... Saturday was spent doing some CD shopping in Shibuya before heading to Unit which is the club i went to for my first clubbing experience. This time we went to see Roman Flugel who is a popular german minimal tech dj. As i've said before, this minimal sound is very popular right now so many djs are playing that sound but Roman manages to have his own unique sound. His set was spectacular! Well structured, varied but with good flow and interesting tracks that i'd never heard anything like before. He was well and truely ointment and the highlight of the weekend. And like the night before, the crowd was excellent.

So that was my 2nd weekend! More for the music buffs out there i guess, some of you may have found that boring but it's my blog so i'll post whatever i feel like! now onto weekend 3....

Weekend 3 - Pixies!

I finally did it! I got to see the Pixies live! Until the Velvet Underground reform, or John Lennon and George Harrison rise from the dead, the Pixes are the most important band you could see. This is because they influenced so many people! If it wasn't for the Pixies you wouldn't have Nirvana, Radiohead, Pearl Jam... or anyone else who uses that soft verse / loud chorus formula! They are the closest thing my generation has to The Beatles... and i got to see them... LIVE. I'm so ointmently badassly smashing!

Just like Autechre, i've been wanting to see these guys for ages... and i had high expectations too. And i'm happy to say that they were able to meet these expectations. They were absolutely brilliant! I loved every minute of it :-) Yet another highlight of my time in japan so far!

And i was able to sneek snappy in and take some photos! check them out:

and guess where they played? at the "Dance Drink Techno Salad" place! So i just had to get another photo of the sign... but this time i chose another part of said sign: "Pasta Rock Pizza Club Appetizer Blues"

This sign is pure genius! i could make at least 3 band names out of this sign! "Techno Salad" "Pasta Rock" "Appetizer Blues" GENIUS! Badass genius. Smashingly badass genius.

So there is another post out of the way... I'm pretty happy about this one actually! And i'll have another in a couple of weeks time so stay tuned!

Snappy presents: Shirahama Junior High School - Photodyssey Deluxe

2005-11-22T17:52:00.000-08:00

This is Snappy's long awaited debut of Snappy's photo album. So any comments should be directed at him... But keep in mind that he is quite sensitive (in case you haven't noticed already!) so be gentle.

First, some background. My school is quite old and pretty big considering how many students go there. There used to be almost 500 students in the 60s but now there are 150. This isn't because of the quality of the school, it's because people have been moving away from the small towns and into the cities... It's happening all over Japan. The school looks like a bomb shelter which i think is no coincidence as the school opened in the mid 1940s. So the architecture is fantastic (well i think so anyways) It's so unique! Especially for a Japanese school as apparently almost all schools look exactly the same: One big building with 3 or 4 floors. But my school is a heptagon. That's right, a 7 sided polygon! (and i remembered these names without checking google... honestly i really did! errr... maybe i did...)

Considering that Shirahama is on the far south coast and where many ships would go near to enter Tokyo it would make a lot of sense to want to protect it if there was a war situation. So i'm pretty sure my school was some sort of mini version of the USA's Pentagon. Which needless to say is really cool!

OK Snappy is getting cranky because i'm hijacking his post. So lets see the photos Snappy!!

Let's start with the staffroom. That desk on the right with the chair sticking out is my desk! This is where i spend my time when i don't have any classes.

this is one of many hallways... Snappy would like you to note that the hallway isn't straight because of the shape of the building

Here is a classroom... There are 6 main classrooms and 3 spares. Junior High School has 3 years... 1st year, 2nd year and 3rd year which is like 7th 8th and 9th grade at an Australian high school. Each year has 50 students and they are split into 2 groups... So what you are left with it 1a, 1b, 2a, 2b, 3a and 3b. Each year also has a spare classroom. All the classrooms look exactly the same apart from different posters on the wall and things like that. There are also special rooms for classes like music, computers, woodshop, home economics... you get the picture (i hope)

This is the main staffroom... I go here for meetings and to eat lunch but spend most of my time in the other staffroom.

This is a board full of stuff about what is happening at the school that i (obviously) cannot read

and here are some photos from outside the school. i find think they are fantastic but some of you might think it's ugly... ahh well! in the background you can see mountains... gives you an idea of how small my town is! on one side is mountains, on the other side is the beach. you can hear the beach from the school quite clearly actually which is cool. makes me think i'm on holiday!

the end

i will post some stuff about visits to tokyo soonishly

DISASTERS!!

2005-11-11T15:28:00.001-08:00

Blogging is cool... As Chris would say, it's so cool that it's the new black! Allow me to demonstrate

I've been up to many things over the last month which will no doubt translate to fascinating reading.

MY CLUBBING DISASTER :-(

Was it really a disaster? Hmmm maybe not but drama and tragedy is what boosts ratings/traffic so it's what i'm sticking with.

In my last entry i was expressing my excitement at seeing Matthew Dear live! But the night didn't turn out the way i hoped... His equipment broke down! So he stopped only 15 minutes into his set! The reason for this was no doubt because he was using a PC and not a Mac... everyone knows that PCs are unreliable pieces of crap!

I was able to sneek Snappy into the club and while it was dark and smokey he apparently came up with a couple of half OK photos... So lets see them Snappy!

Err OK so these are a little crapper than i remembered... Snappy insists that they are "arty" and "abstract" but i'm not convinced... Anyways, this is 2 photos of Matthew Dear before his crappy PC died on him

MY SPEECH CONTEST DISASTER! :-(

So it looks my earlier claims of being a good teacher was premature... Turns out i'm a crap teacher :-(

OK maybe that's not entirely true... You see, we was robbed! There was some miscommunication and i was told the judges wanted the participants to deliver their speech with a big booming voice but it turns out they didn't want that at all. So my student lost. But after being upset initially he now seems to be happy with his achievements so it's all in the past.

Here is where the DISASTER took place

Despite the DISASTER we did have some fun. The venue was in Chiba city which is a couple of hours away from Shirahama and there was some cool things nearby.

Here is a Samurai restaurant where i ate lunch. I really liked this place! It had all this traditional food that the Samurai used to eat and as you can see, the place had the whole oldey timey architecture thang going on.

here you can see the entrance to the restuarant... The entrance is small so it would force the Samurai to remove their swords before entering. You need to crawl inside but if you had your sword you wouldn't fit through the entrance.

I know what you are all thinking... what Samurai restaurant would be complete without a Samurai castle!! While i'm sure there are some Samurai restaurants without castles nearby i doubt they are truely complete... how could they be? I guess i will never know until i visit a castleless Samurai restaurant but i think it's fair to assume this for the time being. As you can see below, this restaurant did have a castle.

Not only was this place a castle, it had been transformed into a museum. It had some cool samurai armour and swords as the following Snapites demonstrate:

But this was the highlight of the museum... on one floor there was this autumn picture for some bizarre reason... Ain't it cute!!!

MY HOUSE PARTY DISASTER!! :-(

This is what i'd be saying if my party wasn't successful but the truth is that it was quite successful indeed! Actually, i'd go as far to say that it was one of the best parties Japan has ever hosted. Great people, great house, great music (i'm an excellent DJ ;-) ) and good times all round. Snappy was on the prowl and took some ripping snapshots...

here are some people letting their bootys surrender to my mad DJ stylz

about 20 or so people showed up and most of them slept the night... some got to sleep in comfort while others slept in places like my closet! A pretty genius idea when i think about it actually...

CULTURE FESTIVAL (non)DISASTER!! :-(

Now this day was fun! There are 2 major fun days on most school calenders... They are Sports Day and Culture Day. Culture Day involves the celebration of Japanese and other foreign cultures. There is also a singing contest and the speech contest participants get to perform their speech in front of the school.

Students select what activity they want to participate in for the day then present something about it at the closing ceremony... Activities include ice cream making, woodshop, Shamisen (a type of japanese guitar) and.... Australia!! I got to turn a whole room into a mini Australian museum to show the students... And with the help of my vice principles collection of kangaroo skins and aboriginal artifacts i was able to create the following:

I also taught the students how to play cricket... they loved that! Sure, most of them held the bat like a baseball bat but who cares right? They really got into the concept of spin bowling though... I'll have to get a video of Shane Warne and show it to them sometime... Now there's a good Aussie role model for the kids of Japan!!

MISC DISASTERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :-( :-o

RAT!!

I found this dead on my floor a couple of weeks ago... No idea how it got there... I haven't seen any evidence of rats in my house... and how did it die? And don't they usually crawl into a corner and die? Strange...

TOE HURTY X3!! :',-(

Rupert strikes again!! During the house party someone removed the toilet paper, setting rupert free... I considered putting a new roll on him but didn't. BIG MISTAKE! He got my bad toe again! I could show some pictures but i think you've seen enough of my toes... apologies to all the toe fetishists out there

So there goes another blog entry... Not one of my best efforts... i relied too heavily on Snappy for this one and didn't really say anything interesting... but don't fear! i will have a new entry coming soon... So it turned out that the blog entry itself was the real DISASTER. Is that irony? I was never clear on what is and isn't irony...

I am the greatest teacher in the history of learningment!

2005-10-14T08:31:00.000-07:00

So here is another update...

Speach contest!

We won! Of the 2 kids i coached one came first in his division and the other came second. This is mostly great but also perhaps a little bad too... let me explain.

Good:
The students and the school were so happy with the result! Afterwards the students told me "very very very very thank you!" They were rapt! And during the time i've spent coaching them their English has improved so much! And they are more enthusiastic about english now. One of the students was practicing her handwriting during the other speeches and writing questions during rival students speeches like "voice too soft?" to which i'd nod or shake my head. Stuff the competition, getting kids to like English is what my job is all about. The other good thing is that the school probably thinks i'm a much better teacher now. My school used to win these fairly often but had gone a few years without any victories. This has also helped my confidence as a teacher.

Bad:
I think that perhaps my school is a little overly obsessed with the contest. Spending 12 or more hours a day at school is too much for a kid in his/her mid teens. There are 12 schools in my region and many of them don't worry about the contest as much as mine does. So while i'd like to pat myself on the back i also gotta consider that if the other schools spent as much time as mine they would all probably be just as good if not better! So you could argue that the overworking of students is what won it for us which isn't cool. Also, the winning student has progressed to the state finals next week which means i have another week and a half of crazy hours!

Overall i'd say it's a good thing so i'm happy with the result. But there are mixed feelings...

Here are the 2 students showing off their prizes:

Tokyo rocks!

Check out who i get to see in the next month or so:

October 15th: Matthew Dear (LIVE!) and Magda (DJ)

November 25: Autechre, Underworld, Vitalic, Coldcut, Tiga, Chris Cunningham

November 26: Roman Flugel (DJ)

December 5: The Pixies!!!

Wow wow wow wow!!!! All of these shows will be amazing but it's the last one that i'm most excited about! I finally get to see the Pixies live! Until John Lennon and George Harrison rise from the dead and the Beatles start touring again, the Pixies are the most important and influential band you could possibly see. And by all reports they are still very much in the zone when it comes to playing live.

This coming saturday is another great party. Matthew Dear (aka Jabberjaw, Audion, False and possibly some other aliases i'm unaware of) is just about the best Microhouse/minimal/acid producers going round at the moment and Magda is one hell of a DJ.

Then i have a massive weekend planned in late november. The festival on the 25th has autechre playing LIVE! Both Autechre and the Pixies would make my top 5 groups i want to see live. Hold on, why don't i compile my top 10 now? OK lets try that once i've finished this paragraph. Roman Flugel is a DJ i'm really wanting to see too and i'm sure Vitalic, coldcut and Tiga will deliver a top show! ok now i will do my list...

Top 10 djs/producers/groups i want to but have not seen yet:

1. The Pixies #
2. Bjork *
3. Autechre #
4. Daft Punk
5. Ryoji Ikeda *
6. Mu *
7. Television
8. Boredoms *
9. Optimo (dj)
10. British Murder Boys
11. Wolf Eyes
12. Liars
13. Misc.
14. Nobukazu Takemura *
15. Maurice Fulton (dj) *
16. Matthew Dear #
17. David Bowie
18. Wighnomy Bros (dj) *
19. Roman Flugel (dj) #
20. Joanna Newsom

# = people i'm seeing in the next couple of months!
* = people who i suspect play in japan regularly so i therefore expect to see soonish.

So i get to wipe 4 off the list in the space of 2 months! Cowabunga!

I am a genius

Rupert has been defeated for now. If my toes had mouths they would be smiling right now.

Experimentoramas in the kitchen: Part II

2005-09-27T06:23:00.000-07:00

3 posts in one day? yo better believe it BuBBle playa hatas!

Don't you hate it when you are watching Big Brother and you later find out that they showed much of the action out of sequence? Well i'm going to make sure that BuBBleman never ends up like that. So i must point out that this experimentorama actually took place on the 26th August back when i had no internet and i hadn't had the time to post it until now...

OK so now that i've cleared this up lets get stuck into volume II of the hugely popular Experimentoramas in the Kitchen.

This time i decided to be a little more ambitious but nothing too crazy... So lets see what we have to cook with:

So we have some bizarre hamburger things, some raw fish (sashimi) and what is that purple thing? Mmmm yes it's Octopus!

Let's have a closer look at the Octopus:

Mmmmm looks good doesn't it! Now at the time i wasn't sure if i needed too cook it or not. But if i had thought about it i would of realised that it's already been cooked (why else would it be purple? gee wizz!) But at the time i thought it would be more fun to cook so why not!

Sizzle

I then cut it up into smaller pieces and put it on top of rice. My serving technique is not very japanese at all! It's actually not polite to mix your rice with other foods unless it's some herbs or some other dry topping (but not sauce) Correct me if i'm wrong but i think it's bad to mix any liquid based topping to your rice as it makes it lose it's stickiness. Japanese rice is slightly different to Australian rice as it will become quite fluffy and sticky if cooked right. But if you mix liquid to this it will no longer stick together. This will also make it harder to eat with chopsticks...

Stop rambling Dave, time for the moneyshot:

Here we go! As you can see, the Octopus was only lightly cooked so it wouldn't become too chewy. And i was successful! it wasn't anymore chewy than you'd normally expect. The sashimi was also very nice but i'm not going to take any of the credit for that... All i had to do was put it on a plate!

As for desert, in my original picture you would of seen some balls on a stick. It was some random thing i bought at the supermarket that while OK, wasn't exactly experimentorama worthy as they were just, umm, balls on a stick... So i decided to have the hamburgers instead. Check them out!

They are like little biscuits! Aww how cute!

So lets give a score... I'll remind you all that the score for my first experimentorama was only 23/50 so surely i will improve on that? Let's find out!

Ambition - 7
This was a leap forward from the previous idea and it looks super cool and freaky and slimy... but considering it's something i'd eaten before (octopus is really common in japan) and i knew exactly what it was i was eating i can't rank it too high!

Efficiency - 8
Can't really fault this... The sashimi and hamburgers required no work at all to prepare and the Octopus was cooked really quickly.

Mess - 8
Just the one pan to clean up! Bits of liquid from inside it splattered around a bit but that was pretty easy to fix up.

Taste - 5
Good but maybe a little bland... probably needed some sauce of some sort to go with it.

Risk - 3
I had a chance to score highly here but took the weak option and decided to cook the octopus so i gotta deduct points for that. Still some slight risk involved though

Final score: 31/50!!

This is a much better score than the last time! Yey for me!! :-)

Randoms

2005-09-27T06:02:00.000-07:00

BAM!! Did you expect this the 1, 2 punch combo of 2 blog entries in one day? This is some random other things that have happened recently...

Toe hurty x2!! :-(

That bloody doorstop has struck again! Check it out:

As you can see, 2 toes were effected this time around. But not to the same extent as the toe on the other foot was last month. But this happened a week ago and they are still hurty. Then when Cassie stayed over for a couple of days she managed to trip on it 2 times! I'm telling you, this doorstop is freaking dangerous and must be stopped. It's already destroyed one of my toes and almost took out 2 others. It also attacked my broken toe for the 2nd time a few weeks ago which really hurt as it's still kinda wrecked from the first attack.

I get the feeling it was aiming for one toe this attack but missed and instead made contact with 2 toes which meant that the force of the blow was halved. I'm sure that i would have broken a 2nd toe if the doorstop was more accurate. Actually, i'm going to give the doorstop a name... It's name is Rupert. And Rupert is 100% evil so i need to either remove him, destroy him or leave him alone. I think it would be funny if i left him then had a party at my place and laughed at all the drunk people tripping over it and partially crippling themselves. Rupert is strategically positioned between the bathroom and the kitchen and poised to take out any drunk people. Yeah i think i need a nemesis in my house and Rupert fits the bill nicely. So he can stay for now... Lets see how many toes can remain intact until i leave Japan.

Mmmmm whale!

Now this is a point where i should be all political and crap on about why it's OK or not OK for Japan to eat whale. I wonder if blogs have ever been used to for political rants before? Hmmm this could be an untapped niche market, i bet there are virtually no political blogs but literally millions of people out there who would want to read them. Anyways, i'm not going to get all political about it... Regardless of my views i decided a "When in Rome..." approach was necessary so i've been planning to eat some since i got here but finally got the chance at a sushi restaurant. That's right kiddos, if i was going to eat whale then why not go to an extreme and eat it raw!

Let's Snappy:

Doesn't look the greatest but it tasted pretty good. It was very chewy and had a very unique taste. I guess that because it's a mammal and not a fish it would be silly to compare it to fish though. Considering that these 2 pieces of sushi cost over $8 it's not something i will be eating too often but it was a good experience. Regardless, while eating it once is cool in my books I'm not sure if i'd be comfortable with eating it all the time. Even though they just seem to be like a poor man's Dolphin,,, our big, vast, blue, flowing, wet, watered and sandy friend (ie the ocean) would probably be happier with them still swimming around doing nothing particularly exciting instead of being served to me on a clump of rice. *shrugs*

Speech Contest:

I think i should explain this concept. Like the title suggests, it's a contest for speeches. That is, a bunch of students get up in front of people and give a speech in english then are judged on the content and delivery of the speech. The contest itself isn't anything too out of the ordinary but the preparation for it certainly is!

A week and a half ago the 3 students that our school have entered spent (according to my potentially dodgy calculations) 72 hours at school in 7 days. That is, 12 hours every weekday and 6 hours each saturday and sunday. I spent around 60 hours at school that week. They couldn't even attend the big town festival because they had to study. Apparently my school is being more hardcore than most in this area but it is common for many hours after school being spent on this contest. All the schools want to do well and mine has a good history of progressing past the regional stage. But not only is the school keen, the students also seem to be quite enthused about it all.

The contest is on the 7th October so until then i will be crazy busy. But i do get the chance to do some stuff here and there before then. It does suck a little because i will miss out on a trip to Kyoto with other JETs in the area. But there will be plenty of time for that stuff once october rolls along.

Oh and here is a quick rundown of my school: 150 students, i teach 18 classes that run for 50 minutes each. In between those classes i will be either marking work, studying Japanese, or sitting at my desk doing nothing. I'll take photos of my school and post them on here one day...

Dave the town celebrity.

I was suspecting such but found out for sure a few days ago...

I was walking down the street when a car pulls over and the driver (whom i'd never met before) says: "My name is ____. I saw your file in the town newspaper. Welcome to Shirahama!" So they have a file on me at the town? I'm guessing that they just published basic info (school, work history, age, hobbies, star sign, blood type) but what if there is more? Maybe there are cameras in my department? People at the supermarket come up to me and look at what i'm buying and i thought it was just curiosity but maybe these people are undercover paparazzi! Could there be a daily column in the paper detailing what food and drink i like and stuff like that? Am i the town's Michael Jackson? Hmm....

My wall of cool stuff.

My house may be quite large but it is a little lacking in charisma. So i've started to decorate a little... There is a massive wall of shelves in the living room that are full of old japanese books that i mostly don't need so i've decided to get rid of the books and do some decorating! Rather than trying to spend a fortune on fancy pants Japanese stuff i've decided to mostly limit what i put on the shelves to bits of cheap but cool crap i find at little stores and stuff like that. Anything that i like and is suitably tacky will end up on these shelves. So i'm going to end up with a wall of cool junk! Here's what i've gathered so far:

Yes i know that Andy Warhol did this sort of thing 40 years ago but i don't care! I'm like Andy Warhol in many ways when you think about it...

Let's J-Clubbing!

Many of you will know that one of the main reasons i decided to live in Japan is because of it's music scene. Tokyo is right up there with the best cities in the world when it comes to music. As a friend of mine says "Berlin rocks but Tokyo rocks too"

So after being all boring and lame with excuses like "i'm tired after working 12 hour days on end!" or "i don't know how to catch trains in Japan!" i finally decided to go to club Unit in Daikanyama near Shibuya for a Kompakt party! As the name would suggest, Kompakt is a German label who are very big in the minimal techno scene at the moment. And for those not in the know, minimal techno (for the moment at least) is the bees knees in underground clubs where cool people (like me) attend. Many of you are probably picturing that crappy techno you hear booming out of fully sick cars on Chapel street but that's not the case at all! Minimal techno (or microhouse, or microgoth, or smackhouse or whatever else you want to call it) is more subdued and subtle than your cheesy generic techno crap.

Many of you are probably getting bored of this music ramblings so i'll keep it brief... Nah stuff it i'll crap on as much as i want. this is my blog afterall!

So for this night we had DJ Koze and a live performance by Lawrence. Lawrence was up first and played some excellent melodic, moody and minimal techno with some of the trademark German stiffly funky swagger. Really really excellent stuff. Koze's DJ set had moments of brilliance and he had a lot of presence behind the decks. His DJ style sometimes seems to be like my blogging (ie, disorganised rambling mess with no distinguishable direction) but that adds to his charms. He would play some massive tracks then slow it down a little then bring it back again and so on. And the club had one of the best sound systems i've ever heard! And the club itself was freaking amazing!

I was able to hook up with Cam, a friend of my friend Chris, and his massive posse of cool foreigners. Pity not all foreigners there were cool... Allow me to get all Negative Nancy for a moment and rant: There are many foreigners in Japan who can get a little annoying at times. Like the one who yelled at Lawrence "Play some techno! What is this a gay bar?" Now saying that to Lawrence is like yelling at Radiohead to play some metal music, pointless and ignorant. Many people at the club seemed to be more interested in taking drugs and trying to pick up girls than the music. OK i can live with that but why come to a Kompakt party then? It cost around $35 to get in and the music wasn't an appropriate soundtrack for such shenanigans... Surely there are plenty of other cheaper bars in Tokyo that are more suitable for that sort of thing? Grrrr! look, this is my angry face right now... GRRRRRR!!! Just like that girl in that Bon Jovi tune gives love a bad name, these people give foreigners a bad name! OK rant over now... As you've all gathered from my blog, there are so many kickass things about Japan it would be stupid to get too worked up about something like this. The ratio of the good to the bad things is around 100:1 so far so why complain eh?

Hey i can't end the post all negative and stuff! lets finish this on a high... I know, i'll share with you all a poem that a student at my school wrote. Not sure exactly how to determine the meaning behind this... if the 4th line means what i think it does then maybe the "cameras in my house" theory stated earlier is true! I'm scared to look in the local paper now...

english
very difficult
mr shoji, mr david, mr mizushima
teacher is very big
no, way!

Ladies and gentleman... KLF has now left the building....

Let's Buddha!

2005-09-27T04:50:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was very cool. We are talking a bottle of lemonade that has been left in the freezer for about 3-4 hours so it has started to get some ice in it but isn't totally frozen yet so when you pour it you get some ice cold lemonade with some icy slurpee stuff on top. Yep, THAT cool. It was a long weekend in Japan out of respect for old people. So we decided to visit some buddhas as they are pretty old aren't they? But this is a long weekend we are talking about not your run of the mill regular weekend so as cool as buddha would be we needed to do more than just that didn't we? Well we did! But what did we do? Read on to find out.....

In case you haven't realised, i'm using the word "we" a lot at the moment. And no it isn't some genius reference to "wee" (although that would be riotously funny, WEEEEE! POOOOO! BUMMMM!!! BOOOOOBIES!!! ROFL!) No the reason for "we" is that Cassie, a fellow Aussie JET from Saitama (north of Tokyo) visited for the long weekend. You can check out her blog at this address (man i'm cool) I also hung out with Arvi (another local english teacher) for much of this weekend.

So now that BuBBleman had company he needed to plan a fun weekend which involved more than coming into school to coach students and/or sitting at home saying "Japan is cool" to himself over and over again. It was totally dumb luck that my region's biggest festival was on this weekend! If you read one of my earlier posts about me pulling that big cart with drummers on it around Shirahama all day while getting drunk then you'll have a pretty good idea what this festival involved. But this time there were heaps of these carts (called Dashi(s)) But if you can't remember here are some Dashi pics to jog your memory.

This time i was a spectator which is probably a good thing because pulling these Dashis seemed to be dangerous as in the space of 5 minutes we saw 2 seperate fights break out. In both cases the people involved seemed to be quite drunk. That was the notable difference between this festival and my smaller local one. Everything was bigger and more hardcore. There were at least 5 dashis as opposed to Shirahama's 2 and there was a massive Fair with food tents and other wonderful things compared with Shirahama's 2 little stores. And people were partying harder too.

Another thing this festival had was these mini golden Shrines that you carry on your shoulders. Very cool stuff indeed and to prove this here are some more Snappites:

But the best thing about the festival was the stores. I bought various pieces of useless junk at these babies such as a Mickey Mouse shaped toffee apple! But the best thing was the haunted house. Snappy got some pics of it:

Here is outside the house... I love the picture of the umbrella with legs... how is that scary? And there was this MC guy saying all this super cool stuff that i couldn't understand. There was this one thing he kept saying that sounded like "ooooh horror horror horror horror horror!!!" in a voice that sounded like the guy from the "Monster Mash" song. (do you remember that tune? it was a graveyard smash!)

The actual inside of the haunted house was pretty cool too but it couldn't match the awesomeness of outside. It was just 2 people wearing masks jumping out from behind curtains and going "RRRRRAAAAARRRRRRRR!!!!" Then there was also some halloween decorations and stuff like that too. But the fact that it was pretty lame inside made the whole experience even cooler. Here's a pic of inside:

So that was saturday. Then on sunday we went to some place to see all these buddhas and i'd have to say that this was the highlight of my time in Japan so far. I can't remember the name of the place but it was a an hour or so away from my town. Apparently it has the largest buddha in Japan... check it out!

Also, there was this buddah too.

But i'd say the best thing was all the little buddhas you find as you walk around the mountain. There were supposed to be 1500 of them in total but many of them had been destroyed and perhaps even removed completely by a bunch of people who didn't like Buddha (or religion in general perhaps?) many years ago. So there were many headless mini Buddhas amongst the non cranium-challenged ones but this actually enhanced the experience in ways i can't really explain. Here are some mini Buddha pics:

I forgot to mention that all this stuff was on a mountain so while there you could see some awesome views of the region. I should point out that the reason why many of these Buddha related pics are of a higher quality than normal... Arvi is quite the photographer and borrowed Snappy for much of the day.

In this last one you can see the top of Mt Fuji near the top right corner.

I then capped off the weekend by going to a local JET's birthday party on the monday night. What a kickass weekend! Only problem is that it might have been a little too good. If Cassie spreads the word about how good Shirahama is then the town (and more importantly, my home) will get overrun by skinking urban gaijin scum! And they will all want to crash at my mansion of a house too. Hmmm this could be a problem :P

So there you have it.... Another post hits the street to the joy of BuBBle fans everywhere. I bet many of my critics were starting to think i was starting to lose the passion that blogging so obviously needs but it looks like you were all wrong doesn't it? I bet you all feel stupid for doubting me don't you? And i've got another post on its way soonishly. Take that BuBBle haters!

I'm too legit to quit baby.... Peace out.

Sport and Karaoke!

2005-09-20T04:53:00.000-07:00

So we had our Sports Day a week and a half ago....

Sports day is like a cross between It's A Knockout, military school and Circus Oz.

Lets discuss the military aspects first as i get the feeling you are all maybe getting the wrong impression about this one. They train very hard for this day. And all the kids look exhausted at various points and it would be easy to feel fustrated about the schools willingness to put them through this. But the kids (at my school at least) really enjoy it! Their enthusiasm is undeniable. And the event builds teamwork and discipline amongst students. For one and a half weeks there are no classes, all time is spent planning for sports day. They even did a full rehearsal (races and all) a couple of days beforehand!

This will give you an idea of the commitment of the students.... This is the banners/whatever-they-are that they made for the event... Once again, Snappy would like to remind all his fans that he is a 5 megapixel camera and therefore if you click on his pictures you can see them really big and stuff and in good quality too.

So why the It's A Knockout comparison? And what is It's A Knockout? For all the non Aussie readers, it's like a really cool, tacky 80s version of Gladiator. Here is a link to some pictures from the classic TV show: http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Bleachers/2492/gallery1.html
(At this point i'd like to point out that i'm aware that you can do stuff like make the actual words "It's A Knockout" a link instead of going here is a link and showing the actual site but i'm going for a "I'm a really cool anti IT guy who refuses to act like he can use computers despite doing an IT course" look. So you can all just deal with it and think of how cool i am OK?)

They have 100m, 200m and 400m individual and relay races but that's the only what i'd consider "regular" events. The other events are way cooler. Here is an example of one: You go through a mini obstacle course that involves stuff like crawling under a net, climbing a mini wall, and dragging a tyre around witches hats, blowing up a balloon then sitting on it so it pops... Then you get to an area where there are several envelops you need to choose which have certain activities you have to do for the remainder of the race. Such activities include playing paper-scissors-rock with spectators, carrying a medicine ball, throwing a baseball and catching it, balancing a tennis ball on a racquet... There are also easy activities such as skipping or jumping over one pissy little hurdle. If you get one of these easy activities you are virtually guaranteed of victory regardless of how you went in the first part of the race! So luck is very much a factor. Sooo very very cool eh? There were also races involving a three legged race only with around 20 legs (ie 20 people tied together and running)

Snappy got a good picture of the 20ish legged race:

Here is another reason why sports day was like It's a Knockout... Cheerleaders!

There was also traditional japanese dancing and a massive tug of war... both of which i joined in with.... both of which i managed to suck at (especially the dancing) It would of been ok if i wasn't the only foreigner doing the dancing and i wasn't wearing a bright orange t-shirt compared to the students who were wearing white and the traditional japanese dancers who had oldey timey traditional japanese clothing. But rather than be offended with my horrible dancing they all seemed to find it funny.

Now all i'm left with is explaining the Circus Oz comparison. The guys get to do all sorts of crazy stunts and games. And they also got to practice them on over and over to make sure they got some really cool bruises. Snappy really has to come into his own here to explain this one because words will struggle to do talkies and explain it. Come on Snappy! You can do it!

Here is the first of 3 blog posts:
Err this isn't the best you got is it Snappy? Yes it looks kinda cool but the readers want to see danger! OK well i'll explain this one first... This is a human fan. They will eventually fall forward to probably symbolise a fan blowing wind at people or something (i'm very poetic at describing this sort of stuff)

Ok stop cracking the poos because i wasn't impressed by your first photo and show us your next photo...

This is more like it! Human Pyramids! And if that isn't enough... if you look at the guy in the middle of the bottom row you will see that he has his hands off the ground. This is because Snappy caught the exact point when they are beginning to lift their hands and collapse themselves... That's right! This bottom row is a second away from having the others fall and land on them. Once this is finished a majority of these kids will be holding their backs and looking rather uncomfortable as they have copped a knee or 2 in the spine. Crazy stuff but fun... I kinda wish i did it too!

OK snappy that was a fine pic... You're back on track buddy.

Here is a standing pyramid. Looks cool and is also dangerous, the perfect sports day combination!

This is my fave event of the festival. It's some form of "horse and chariot" game where two teams piggy back people then run over to the other team and try to either remove the headband off the head of the piggy back-ee or knock them to the ground. What tends to happen is you try to remove a headband but end up almost scratching out the other guys eyes as they fall to the ground. If they bring back It's A Knockout they have to play this game! Or maybe they could have it on Double Dare... Actually, that doesn't make any sense but i felt like mentioning that game show anyways....

So that's enough talk about the sports day... Lets talk about Karaoke!

I had my first official Enkai after the festival. An Enkai is a japanese drinking party/dinner and have a reputation for being great fun... And mine sure was! I didn't drink that much but i did get to tear up the mic at Karaoke. As you'd all guess, my Karaoke debut has been much anticipated throughout both Japan and Australia and possibly other parts of the world. I think that details of my debut performance must have leaked out to the general public because a small party of music journalists showed up to see the performance. I think they were expecting some sort of musical event that rivaled when The Ramones first played CBGBs or Elvis' first TV performance... Not sure if it quite reached that level of importance but i'm sure this will be looked back on as one of the most significant moments in karaoke history. Even though i haven't quite hit my straps yet. One of the writers was kind enough to email me his reviews that are to be published soon It's one of those track by track write-ups:

---------------------------------

Frank Sinatra - New York, New York

Score: 7.3/10

A brave first choice for david and after a shakey start was able to put in a solid performance. He lost his way a little at the beginning as he overcame nerves but was able to maintain composure and nail the "King of the hill, a number one!" climax. Looks like there is potential in this kid afterall!

Men At Work - Down Under

Score: 2.1/10

Tries to wow his fellow teachers by singing an Australian song but fails to consider the virtually unsingable verses that this song has. Also fails to consider the fact that none of his teachers even know what the term "Down Under" means! Horrible effort and a tough lesson that had to be learnt.

Michael Jackson - Thriller

Score: 5.2/10

After failing his previous attempt Dave decides to ask his teachers to choose a song for him and this is what he got. Not a song that is ideal for Dave's style but he does give it a fair crack and finishes up with an average showing.

Michael Jackson - Beat It

Score: 7.6/10

The teachers want some more MJ so cue this up for Dave. Having adapted to MJ on the previous track Dave pulls out his best performance yet. What Dave lacks in vocal range he makes up for with some random Michael Jackson "oohs" and "hee hee hees" If this new found ambition is due to increased confidence or drunkenness is unclear but it's a good sign regardless. After this performance he gets a standing ovation and is called "David Michael Jackson" by various teachers.

John Lennon - Imagine (Duet with Vice Principle)

Score: 3.4/10

Out of his league here... And he knew it too! Dave decides to take the "Blonde guy in Savage Garden" / "Baby Spice" approach and just sort of softly mumble the words and let the Vice Principle take over. Probably a wise move actually! His partner is a pro and there is no need to cramp his style now is there?

B-52s - Love Shack

Score: 9.8/10

Finally we see what Dave really can do! He NAILS this track. Every lyric (such as "Tin Roof Rusted!") is given the passion that it so sorely deserves. This song and Dave is undoubtedly a match made in heaven. I'd have to say this was the best karaoke performance the region has seen for a very long time. A star is born.

I was going to post another entry but this one took way too long and i'm tired now... i'll post some more in the next day or 2 ok?

A big update of random stuff

2005-09-09T04:30:00.000-07:00

OK so i've been a little slack recently... Has the bubble burst with my blogging enthusiasm?? Or should that be, has the BuBBle burst?? (Get it?? ROFL!) I actually have an excuse for the lack of updates recently. I didn't have internet for a while so couldn't do any updates. But that's all fixed now so BuBBleman is back in action.

So lets open things up with a longish boringish entry about what i've been up to recently.

Here's some random updates to get this party started Pink style:

Toe:

My toe is probably broken, it's bent on a strange angle and still hurts a little. If it is broken then it's my first broken bone! YEY! It's always good to know what your physical limits are. My limit appears to be doorstops. They are like my kryptonite or something... I actually stubbed my pinkie toe on the same doorstop again last night! So now that toe is hurty too Damn that doorstop i hate it and it hates me :-(

Bowling:

I went bowling at this really cool place. Why is it so cool? I'l let Snappy show you why:

Check out the bowling shoes! I want to take these babies clubbing in Shinjuku

And this is what you get on the screen when you get a Spare. A panda!!

And this is what you get when you get a Strike! A MONKEY!! I love monkeys but the only one in Japan i've seen so far was one of those performing monkeys on the street with a busker. Apparently wild monkeys are not at all cool but i don't care. I have this image of monkeys in forests that smoke cigars, wear pants and generally try to act like humans... But every now and then they snap and revert to their original form and start screaming and throwing their own crap at each other... then once there is no more crap left to be thrown they revert back to their cigar smoking selves.

So basically i'm imagining that monkeys act the way they are protrayed on TV and movies. Yes i'm aware that in most cases they aren't monkeys but chimps or something like that instead of monkeys and yes I'm aware that these monkeys are possibly poorly treated and would rather not act this way but in my head, none of these things seem to register. So i need to make sure i see no wild monkeys or any more street performing monkeys so my image isn't tainted. I'll stick to only watching TV movie or animated monkeys (like the crazy one in Family Guy)

OK so i've got a little distracted now haven't i? Lets move on...

Typhoon:

There was a really big Typhoon here last week. Some are saying it was the biggest we've had in Shirahama for 3 years! The funny thing was, as it was happening i had no idea how big it really was. Somehow i'd got the impression that it wasn't a big typhoon (hey i can't understand the news reports!) so while most of the town were probably quite concerned i was in my house without a care in the world. Even when i woke up at 3am to the sound of massive winds and my house rocking from side to side i thought to myself "wow if this is a small typhoon i wonder how bad a big one is!" My logic was that my house had survived plenty of big typhoons so what did i have to worry about. I hadn't even closed the storm shutters to protect my windows! Considering that some houses had their roofs blown off i was probably quite lucky that none of my windows were broken!

Judo:

I still suck at judo.

Teaching:

A couple of weeks ago I went to a summer language school in a nearby town to teach older students for a few days which was heaps of fun. It was my first real teaching experience and the fact i enjoyed it so much is a good sign me thinks. The students were great and actually had much better english than i was expecting. Most of them were also really keen to learn which is the most important thing. It's only early days but my initial views are that i don't care how smart my students are, all i want is for them to give it a shot.

I started teaching on 1st september and the school is really cool and i'm getting plenty of stuff to do. For the time being I'm working 10 hour weekdays and most weekends to assist with training for speech contest. What's the speech contest you ask? I'll talk about it more later but all i'll say for the moment is that the school is really keen to do well in it.

Besides tutoring a few students I'm not doing any actual teaching because there are no classes until next week. This is because they are training for Sports Day which is like their version of school athletics only with extra stuff. Rather than explain it to you i'll let Snappy do the explaining next week. Some of this stuff has to be seen to be believed!

Baseball:

I went to a pro baseball game last weekend. We sat in the cheering section with some really really keen fans. They had heaps of chants (complete with hand movements) that they all had memorized. Even though the home team lost they were having a ball. Check out the pictures snappy took!

This is the crowd doing one of their many chants.

Our team's star player is Korean which is why you can see the flag. Apparently the nets are for them to catch the ball when he hits a home run.

Then there was the "traditional balloon thingie". I'm sure it has a name but i have no idea what it is. What happens is that people buy these balloons that they then all let go of at once. They have these filters where you blow them up which makes a squeaking sound when they are let go of... Very cool! Snappy got some ripping photos of it... check them out!

After we had lost the game our cheer squad did a chant congratulating the other team! And the other team's cheer squad did a chant wishing our team good luck! How strange is that? I doubt you'd see that at a Carlton vs Collingwood footy match! Sometimes the Japanese can just be too nice! Where are the brawls and heckling? The fan's don't even boo when they disagree with a decision! Actually, it's quite impressive how passionate they can be about their sport yet also keep their emotions in check.

OK this will do for now... I'll have another update really soon with stuff about Sports Day, my first Enkai (a japanese drinking party!) which is being held after Sports Day, the looming speech contest and... Experimentoramas in the Kitchen Vol 2!! OMGzzzzzz!!!

Man i'm tired! I mean, really really exhausted tired... I'm off to bed

Chiba Orienteering

2005-08-18T18:38:00.000-07:00

Spent 3 days at orientation in Chiba city... what was it like? Yeah it was pretty cool i guess. Lots of useful info was learnt and i got to hang out with other Chibites and indulge in funness.

As is the BuBBleman (my ghostwriter suggested i make the Bs in CAPS as it looks more japanesey) style i'll focus on the fun stuff. So lets start of with the coolest thing in all of Chiba:

check out all these vending machines!!! 15 in the one room! and it was in our hotel!! Luckily Snappy took some more photos so lets check those out:

MMMM look at them all! How could anyone resist?

Ok lets look at something else now... Although this isn't a pretty sight at all i'm afraid. We went to the Outback Steakhouse which is basically an Australian themed restaurant but with no Australian food... Since when was Ribs Australian? And where is the meat pies or sausage rolls? Regardless, it was still some good grub but Irwin, my fellow Aussie, decided to ruin the meal by getting a Carlsberg? Sure, Fosters is a crappy beer and it cost around $10 Australian but whatever happened to flying the flag? If there was ever a time to be patriotic this was that time. Poor form Irwin, very poor indeed.

One good thing about coming back to urban Japan is the increase in bizarre j-stuff. A good example of this was a claw game where you could win porn! Sadly, Snappy dropped the ball when it mattered most and was unable to take a picture that wasn't all blurred and crappy. There was also that drum game that i really like... I forgot the name but you beat this big drum in time to the music and it's super fun! Below we have a picture of this crazy American baseball guy which i liked:

OK so this post has really sucked so far... Pretty boring (even by BuBBleman standards) and a few attempted gags that haven't worked out. But this next picture is going to change all that. I still haven't got a program to do my drawings with but i did manage to draw a picture while bored at the orientation which i'm very proud of. I don't think it needs much explanation... And i feel it's important that an artist like myself doesn't explain himself too much and lets others form their own views. Here it is:

Toe Hurty! :-(

2005-08-14T05:54:00.000-07:00

I hurt my toe today! Wanna see? Don't scroll down if you don't want to see it because it looks kinda bad... Snappy was grossed out by it so much that he didn't want to take the picture! But when Thumper said that he was willing to take the photo instead he changed his tune pretty quickly!

So scroll down if you want to see it...

Here it is! Snappy thinks it might be broken which i guess is possible... As you can see it's got pretty swollen and this was taken 12 hours after i hurt it... So you want to know how i hurt it?? OK I'll show you:

This little bastard!! Damn i hate this thing! It's a door stop in my house and i've stubbed my toe(s) on it about 4 times already! But this time i was running not walking so it caused way more damage.

Here's another photo to demonstrate how evil this frigging doorstop is. You see that door on the far left? That's the door to the squirty toilet room and the doorstop is for that door! Firstly, why the hell do i need a doorstop there? When am i going to fly that door open fast enough to need a doorstop? Secondly, see how exposed the doorstop is when the bathroom door is closed? It's an accident waiting to happen! At least, it is for a dope like me. This house has had at least 5 other teachers stay in it and the fact that it hasn't been removed indicates that i'm the first person who has had a problem. Not only that, i've managed to have a problem with it 4 times in under 3 weeks!

That doorstop has got to go. I'll get onto it after my orientation... I'm heading off to orientation for 3 days tomorrow in Chiba city which will be much fun (i hope...) so i'll get my revenge on this bastard after then...

My Ketai!

2005-08-14T05:26:00.000-07:00

I got my mobile phone (or Ketai as it's called in J-land) yesterday!

My plan was to get a simple, straight forward phone but once i found out that the better ones only cost an extra $20 i couldn't resist getting one a little better. I don't know how to use most features yet but it has a camera and internet abilities. Apparently SMS isn't used here much so you get an email account and use that instead.

My house is one of those areas where mobile phones refuse to work but i was able to get "rabbit ears" to put in my house so it works. So because of the rabbit ears his name is Thumper (named after the cool rabbit in Bambi)

Now those of you who have met Snappy won't have to be told that he is quite pissed about another digital camera being in my life. He's quite territorial and jealous! I've tried to explain to him that Thumper has 1.2 Megapixels compared to his 5 Megapixels so he will always be the #1 digital camera in my life but he's still not a happy Snappy.

I wanted to take some photos of Thumper for you all but Snappy refused initially. So i've cut a deal with him: If he took photos of Thumper then i'd let photos of himself be on the blog too. Luckily, vanity is the strongest of his insecurities so he agreed under the condition that his photo was shown first! He wouldn't let Thumper take the photo so i took the photo in the mirror:

So here's Snappy! A good little camera (but a little cheeky at times)

And here is Thumper! He gets 2 photos (back and front). Hey don't give me that sort of look Snappy! If you had allowed Thumper to take a photo of your back then you would of got 2 photos too!

Oh i think i better go now. Snappy needs some counseling....

Experimentoramas in the kitchen: Part I

2005-08-08T23:30:00.000-07:00

This will hopefully become a regular segment on my blog... It depends on if the feedback about it is positive. My aim is to make this segment as famous as Dave Letterman's "Will It Float?" or Rove's "What Da?" or Hey Hey It's Saturday's "Pluck A Duck" or maybe even Sofie Lee's Barrel Draw from "What's Up Doc?" (although that last one is probably impossible to top)

I wouldn't say that i'm a really bad cook but i'm definately inexperienced and a little average... But this is the perfect time to change that! This first installment is quite conservative but it is the first time i've tried to cook a proper meal due to a combination of laziness and being invited out to dinner very often. So consider this as the pilot episode where Homer says "Dew" instead of "D'oh" and Marge's voice sounds funny. In future episodes i shall be buying the most bizarre ingredients i can find without understanding what they are or how to use them then seeing what i can do with them. Apparently you can buy octopus noodles that come marinated in Octopus Ink! Maybe i can find that one or something even stranger to cook with.

So as Pink famously once said: "Let's get this party started"

So what do you think these things are? Turds? No i haven't broken the squirty toilet and resorted to using a plastic bag (yet..) This was my first attempt at cooking something. Take a good look without scrolling down and try to guess what they are. Give up? Well luckily i bought too much for one meal and was able to throw these ones out and start again. Hey Snappy, stop laughing at my crappy cooking and show us my triumphant 2nd attempt ok?

Here we go! Japanese pork dumplings with rice and Yebisu (my fave j-beer) It was quite tasty actually.

So now i'm going to give it a score...

Here's what the categories mean:

Ambition - How adventurous the meal was in terms of strangeness and variety of ingredients and difficulty to cook it.
Efficiency - Was it cooked quickly? Did i stuff up and have to start again?
Mess - Was the kitchen left messy afterwards? Will it take long to clean up?
Taste - No explanation required.
Risk - Could i die or get sick if i stuff it up? Do i even know what i'm trying to cook?

So this time the scores are:

Ambition - 1
Efficiency - 4
Mess - 9
Taste - 8
Risk - 1

Total - 23/50

pretty average score but i'm sure i can improve in time... OK that's it!

Fireworks!

2005-08-08T22:30:00.000-07:00

Went to a fireworks show last night in Tateyama which is a biggish (50,000 people i think?) town which is around 20 minutes away from my place.

This may be a little obvious but i'll say it anyway. Japanese fireworks are MUCH better than Australian ones. And this festival had chocolate bananas on sticks! So very very cool!

I got to meet around 8 or so other new or existing JETs from the area who were all way smarter and clued up about J-culture than me which meant i was able to learn stuff off them which was great. They were all cool people which is great to see so hopefully i can lhang out with them some more in future.

Now Snappy was a little upset about not being involved in the last post so i better let him contribute in this one... So what have you got for us today Snappy?

OK so these are are Flamenco Dancers who were dancing during the fireworks. So far in my 2 weeks here i've seen Samba and Flamenco but no traditional Japanese dancing! Not what i expected but cool regardless. They had these dancers as well as two seperate sets of fireworks that were often going on at the same time! Snappy would like to point out that by clicking on the photos they magically grow and get bigger and stuff.

As well as the normal fireworks they had these massive ones that would come out of the water. It probably won't surprise many of you when i say that i like looking at fireworks but its the noise they make which i really enjoy. And these big ones out of the water made a massive BOOM! sound which kicked booty. Actually it was more of a "BLUMP" sound than a BOOM.

So yeah, fireworks are cool. The end. (not the end of the blog... just the end of the post, don't panic)

My first Judo class

2005-08-08T22:07:00.000-07:00

I was invited to attend my first judo class a couple of nights ago. Now so far i've been able to handle just about every challenge that has come my way but i think i've found something that i simply can't master.

I'm HORRIBLE at judo. Yes it was only my first lesson but man i sucked! Those of you who have seen me play sport will know that there are some things that i don't have the coordination to do without looking like a fool. Well Judo has managed to take all those things i'm not good at and combine them into the one activity.

Because you get thrown to the ground a lot in Judo the first thing you need to learn is how to fall in a way that minimizes the chance of injury. So I spent an hour learning to fall over... and by the end of the lesson i still couldn't get it right! Considering the numerous times i have fallen over after tripping over stuff or just being generally dopey in the past you'd think that falling over would be my forte but i'm afraid not.

I actually think the teachers were in mild shock that someone could be so bad at something that they feel is so simple. I'm sure they are thinking "wow Australians are really really bad at Judo" rather than "wow David is really really bad at judo" so it isn't something i'm too concerned about. What's concerning me is my next lesson. It's tempting to quit but they have already let me borrow a uniform and i can tell that they are wondering how long i will keep at it before giving up. So my plan is to continue going and naturally sucking until it reaches a point where they want me to quit more than i do! At this rate it shouldn't take long.

This sentance is being typed so i can stall and post this message at exactly 2:30 (or tooth hurty) japanese time... Ok... Post... It.... Right.... Soon.... Sooner... Now! no wait.... Now!

Chikura De Samba!

2005-08-06T08:21:00.000-07:00

Ok before i get onto the samba party i gotta comment on the people in Shirahama. Everyone here is so damn nice! At first i was thinking that they were almost too nice! I'm not used to so many people going out of their way to be nice to me. I was thinking "what do they want from me?" and getting a little paranoid but now i see that this is just the Japanese (or maybe just the Shirahama) way.

I'm making some great friends here already... Actually, i seem to be making good friends with almost everyone i've met so far that can speak English. And i get the feeling that those who either can't speak English or aren't confident enough in their English to speak to me would be just as friendly if they could be.

For example, one of these people lives at a local Buddhist temple and invited me over for a BBQ dinner and to offer some really helpful advice about teaching. Another took me snorkeling and gave me the ticket to the samba party... And another has also invited me to dinner and offered to teach me Judo.

OK so lets talk about the Samba party!

A friend gives me a ticket to this at a cheap price to the party but i have little idea about what it is for. I'm getting used to going somewhere and having no idea what is going to happen! It's at a neighboring town so i get to drive my car for the first time! It's a good little car actually... I think it needs a tuneup but it's only gone 85000kms so it's running well.

So i get to the party... Everyone seems to want to pretend they are from Jamaica or Brazil... so this gives me a clue about what this is going to be... Turns out that it's a Samba party! I was told it was "Samba" but had forgotten what Samba meant... Out of dumb luck i end up right up the front despite being a little late. For those who are as clueless about Samba as i used to be imagine The Beach Boys' "Kokomo" only way cooler (because it's Japanese) The band are called Little Jive Boys which is the perfect name for them as it sounds like a mix of The Beach Boys and Jive Bunny. There were also dancers and stuff... Maybe i can describe it better with the use of Snappy (the name of my camera)

So let's see Snappy's perspective of Chikura De Samba!

Ahh so this is the Little Jive Boys earlier in their set. I love the mix of influences they have image wise. The singer has the psychedelic 60s look, the bass and keypad players had a Jazz look about them and the guitarist has the whole beach boys look going on. They are all quite skilled musicians, especially the guitarist. And the singer seems to be funny (not that i'd know) and the whole thing is going well. But this is just the beginning. To get back to that famous Pink quote, they are "getting this party started" but they are just getting warmed up!

Ok... Snappy wants to take a slight detour here... This t-shirt really confused me. Either it's making a really serious point about soul music or it's an example of poorly translated English. But if it was making a strong anti-soul statement then why wear it to a night like this? I don't know!! Thinking about it hurts my brain... Lets get back on topic ok Snappy?

This is more like it Snappy! These 2 danced around for a couple of songs and really got the crowd going. They had the whole John Travolta & Olivia Newton John in Grease relationship going on with that whole dancing/acting thing. The guys LOVE the girl.

This girl sort of freaked me out... She was talented but she had this scary look on her face... Everyone else loved her so maybe it was just me. She happened to come on stage for some of the best songs though so i was still enjoying myself.

Both snappy and i loved this moment :-) For some reason the bass player went crazy and decided to play the bass behind his back. Very very cool. If only he still had his red hat on! It feel off during his crazy period which is a shame because it's a really cool hat. This guy was the highlight of the night. A Double Bass is a cool instrument so it would be easy for him to just stand there are go "yeah i'm cool because i play a cool instrument" but he was willing to strive for even more coolness.

So now the dancing girls come out! Everyone goes wild and starts chanting random stuff at them which i don't understand.

So at the end the girls and the band get together and "Jam" (i'm cool and like to use cool words like jam sometimes) The crowd lap it up and both bust moves and get jiggy with it. And the night ends there.

The samba party was another highlight of Japan so far. Not just because of the music but because of the friendly and enthusiastic vibe.

Beach Type Thingies

2005-08-06T06:55:00.000-07:00

Shirahama has a student exchange program with students from Gunma Prefecture (north of Tokyo and about an 8 hour drive away from Shirahama) which i'm invited to. Because these students don't live near a beach the town decides to do beachy type thingies with them.

Beachy type thingie #1: Go on a boat ride around the bay for about an hour. I really enjoy this but some of the students seem pretty bored by it all. Many of them fall asleep! And this boat is going pretty fast in choppy waters! Hmmm... if this makes japanese students go to sleep then how can i keep them awake in class?

Here are some pictures:

the town from the boat.

and this is the boat that we went on...

OK so that wasn't very exciting to read and see was it? lets move on...

Beach type thingie #2 - See these glowing things

I have no idea what these were. We had a dinner with the students then went to a dark room where we watch a doco and some slides about these things in the ocean that glow in the dark. Not understanding Japanese i didn't really understand any of it... My guess is that they were spores from some coral that swim around and are attracted to light or something. Once again half the students fell asleep. And the ones that didn't fall asleep were turning around and staring at me. So i didn't want to be a bad influence so had to pretend that i was paying attention to the doco even though i had no idea what it was about.

After an hour or so we actually got to see a tank full of these things which was actually pretty cool. That woke the students up! Mental note... don't show pictures of stuff and crap on about them... you need to actually show the students the real thing! So now i have to get a Kangaroo and some other Aussie stuff into Shirahama somehow.

Beach type thingie #3 - Go to the beach!

My first proper swim... and this time i wore sunscrean because it was a Thursday (did i mention that it's best to go fishing on this day?)

The swimming beach is really good. Problem was that they were really worried about the kids drowning so we didn't go in any higher than our knees! So i pretty much just lay in the water and watched the kids going crazy. As i mentioned before they hadn't been to a beach before so they were really excited.

So that was it for the students and this is the end of the post... pretty boring post really but these events were fun. Yeah i know, i suck at blogging. i'm gonna pysch myself up for the next post to make it the bestest ever blog post ever

Why obeying the laws of the days of the week are important...

2005-08-03T19:35:00.000-07:00

I went snorkeling yesterday and it was great fun! We went near the rocks in a nearby town where there are heaps of fish... I saw heaps of bizarre looking fish and managed to step on plenty of slimy seaweed. A great time all round. The people I went with even caught some "Uni" (Sea Urchins) which we cracked open and ate there.

But... I also managed to get pretty badly sunburned. So what's the moral of this story? Wear sunscreen?? NO! The moral is to obey the laws of the days! Many of you will already know these but for those who don't or may have forgotten lets recap:

Monday - Listen to reggae music (because reggae music is cool MON)

If you listen to reggae on any other day of the week you simply won't be able to appreciate the genius of the likes of Bob Marley.

Tuesday - Gamble (because you choose (or TUES) what you want to gamble on) It can be going to the race track, the casino or the TAB. Your can choose (or TUES... ROFL!)

If you gamble any other day of the week you will most likely lose your money. But gamble on a Tuesday and you are virtually guaranteed to win. Want some proof?? Well what day of the week is the Melbourne Cup on huh? Exactly

Wednesday - Get married or go to a wedding (To see people be WED)
Any wedding that isn't on a Wednesday is doomed to fail. If you think back to all the weddings you've been to on a Wednesday I bet you can't think of a single one that has ended in divorce.

Thursday - Go hunting for animals or shopping for fur (or THURS)

The animals know their role in society... At least they know their role for one day every week. That's why the day was named THURSday. So on this day animals are easier to catch. And they spend all week grooming themselves to ensure that their THUR is in good condition for this day. If you catch an animal on a Monday their THUR will be in horrible condition. This day is also the best day to give your dog a brush or get yourself a haircut (hey, hair is like our fur!)

Friday - Eat junkfood (or anything that's FRIed)

There are some traditions in culture that people forget the original purpose of... One of those is the Aussie Fish n Chips on a Friday tradition. A little known fact is that Fish n Chip shops were originally only opened on a FRIday. But corporate greed has resulted in them being open much more often. Ever noticed how you feel a little sick after eating junkfood? That's because you are eating it on the wrong day! You can eat all the FRIed food you like on a Friday and not get sick or put on weight.

Saturday - Sit down (or in past time SAT down)

Everyone needs to put their feet up and relax every now and then. Well this is the day to do it! Remember how the AFL used to have pretty much all their games on a SATurday?? that was so people had something to do while they SAT down! Upsettingly, the law for this day really isn't being followed much at all... There should be 24 hour curfews on a SATurday. Once again I blame corporate greed :-(

Sunday - Hang out in the SUN!

So now we get to the law I disobeyed. If i was to spend 5 hours in the sun with no sunscreen on a SUNday i would not have been burnt! And there is no risk of skin cancer on this day either. Did i listen?? No! So for this reason i accept my sunburn and will never forget to make this mistake again.

The town!

2005-08-03T19:07:00.000-07:00

So a couple of days ago i took my bike and rode around the town being Mr Tourist and taking pictures of stuff. There are plenty of cool quirky things but i'll save those for later. For now i'll just show you the standard sight seeing things...

this is a river that runs near my house. It flows into the ocean and like everything containing water in this town, people seem to like to fish here.

This is what the beach looks like right near my house. I'm about 100 metres away from the beach but as you can see it isn't good to swim in. Probably due to volcanic activity, a large proportion of the beach is quite rocky.

Here's a another beach shot with the lighthouse in the background. It's the 2nd oldest lighthouse in Japan and the official symbol of the town.

a closer shot of the tower. What's that? You want me to go up the lighthouse... Ok then lets go kiddies!

So here's a view of my town from the lighthouse. As you can see, it's quite small in size but just like a larger town people are crammed together. Many houses are small with no gardens or anything like that. There are around 5,000 people living here... The large buildings you can see are hotels for the tourists that come here for summer holidays.

This is the largest of the shrines here.

This is where you wash your hands before entering the shrine

I took more photos but this will do for now...

So that's all the typical/boring stuff out of the way... It's good to get all that stuff out of the way because now i can start ramblind g more ;-)

Festival!!

2005-07-31T20:37:00.000-07:00

Last night was the best time i've had in japan so far!

There was some festival on (a flower festival i think) where everyone had to pull a cart filled with musicians and kids. The kids would blow whistles while the drummers and flute players would play music. It was a really hot day and at first i thought we only had to pull it for an hour or so but we ended up doing it for 9 hours! So i was putting in much more effort than everyone else at first and pretty much buggered after a couple of hours. But to try and impress the locals i kept going. Over the course of the 9 hours we would stop and people would invite you into their house for food and beer. Most of these people didn't seem overly wealthy but they all offered expensive food. One little piece of fish i ate at some point was supposedly worth US$100!

The festival is about the towns around Shirahama joining together and becoming one. So there was many different carts all over the place. When our cart crossed paths with another everyone would stop pulling then jump and dance around for about 5 minutes before continuing on their way.

OK, from tomorrow onwards this blog will be a little more creative and funny now that i've got all the boring important details out of the way. I also need to find a program to draw with so i can commence my trademark drawings. So make sure you visit!

The House!

2005-07-30T19:07:00.000-07:00

Yeah so my house is pretty freaking cool. Let me show you around with the help of Bubbleman's Blogographic Technology (ie BBT).

here is the front of the house

Here is my front yard. Yes it's what you'd call "low maintenance" which suits me fine. The building in the background is my school! That's right, i just have to cross the road and i'm at work! While i'm talking about schools, this is the Junior High school which i will work at a majority of the time. I also work at 2 Primary Schools and 2 Kindergartens

OK so this is a little strange... this house is full of boxes and papers and stuff. and is at the front of my house (you can see my house in the background) I have no idea what it's for but i'm sure nobody lives there.

My backyard and car

Kitchen and Dining room. Behind me is fridge, washing machine and dryer

First bathroom. Those controls on the left of the toilet are water jets that you use instead of toilet paper... I'm not sure about this yet but i did give it a try. Hmmmm...... not sure if i'll stick with my trusty toilet paper on not

The living room. Note the cool speakers and sub woofer i got from my predessor, i've very happy with those :-)

My new bike. Even with the seat up as high as it can go it's still too small for me but it's still fun to ride! It's got this strange key system that locks the wheels and when i rode it to the shops i forgot how to use it and was stuck there for a little while.

The study. Because my bedroom and lounge room has heating and air conditioning i could see myself using those instead of the study... But it's still a nifty lil' room.

I think this is as special little room to do your ironing in *shrugs*

Now until i decided to take photos of the place today i'd actually forgotton this room even existed. What's it's purpose? I already have 2 other bathroom sinks! I refuse to ever use this room.

My closet. *waits for a comment from Cam*

My bedroom. There are 2 single beds joined together...

Storage with a whole heap of stuff i'll prpbably never use

View from the balcony. That's my school you can see in the background

Another balcony shot.

This is the upstars bathroom and shower.

The stairs. The steps are actually too small for my feet so i have to go down them sideways! I've been having a bit of a problem with my hight and feet size so far but most of it's pretty funny and not annoying.

So that's it! I'm really happy with the place and it already feels like home.

Shirahama

2005-07-30T18:42:00.000-07:00

Shirahama

I get a bus to some building in Chiba where myself and the 25 other Chiba JETs. We sit in a large room with us on one side and representatives from the various Chiba towns on the other side. One guy said the situation was a little like the NBA Draft which was right on the money. The Chiba Reps would glance over at us and wonder who was their JET while we were doing exactly the same thing. There were a few people near me who I thought seemed very laid back and nice. They were telling jokes to each other and had this friendly warmth about them which I liked… Luckily these were the people from Shirahama!

Shirahama people seem to be very laid back and informal compared to the Japanese Stereotype. Within 10 minutes of meeting me my supervisor told me I should be a Sumo Wrestler! My supervisor’s English is very limited but he appears to be making a big effort to learn. He’s a really cool guy and we are getting on really well which is very important. The Vice Principle of Shirahama Junior High School was also there and his English is excellent. He actually lived in Adelaide and taught Japanese there for a few years. So not only is his English excellent but he understands Australian culture which could be invaluable if a situation arises where there is conflict caused by cultural misunderstandings.

It’s hard to say but it looks like I’ve made a good impression on who I’ve met so far. My nonexistent Japanese skills and slight nervousness has made me a little dopey in certain situations but they seem to find this funny. At my welcoming dinner there were many sentences that went “blah blah blah David blah blah blah” and were followed by laughter. I’ve cracked a few gags that have gone down ok and eaten all the strange food they gave me and had plenty of Sake (Japanese wine). They also highly respect my educational, professional and family background.

However, while the first impressions are good I get the feeling they are still waiting to see how I adapt before they have finished judging me. I’m sure they think I’m friendly and a genuinely good “Aussie gentleman” but they are very keen for me to embrace their culture which includes learning Japanese. They are probably waiting to see how well I can teach…

I'll post some pics of the town soon once i've done some tourist stuff with my camera

Orientation

2005-07-30T18:30:00.000-07:00

So we get to the airport Sunday morning then go to the hotel. So far the only distinctly un-Melbourne things are the very hot and humid weather, Japanese street signs and the greener plantation on the sides of the road. Where is the J-craziness? I decide to take a walk with some other Aussie JETs and after a couple of blocks still can’t see anything special. What’s the big deal about this place? After another block things change very rapidly… Yeah, I’m in Japan now! Heaps of shops, some bizarre, some cool, some very disturbing…

The most immediately cool thing is the vending machines. I would have spent around 3000 yen ($35) in 3 days from those wonderful things. Apparently the beer and “erotic” ones are banned now but the regular ones are awesome! I played “vending machine lottery” where I’d choose the most bizarre looking drink and see what it’s like. My strike rate was surprisingly good. While Japanese drinks might seem strange they all seem to have their charms.

I was rapt that they had Dr Pepper and thought that it would never be beaten until I came across “Bubble Man” It’s a grape flavoured lemonade and quite tasty but the best thing about it is the can:

As you can see, he has a “Bubble met” instead of your regular helmet. And his suit and flash are also very sharp. This can is the best thing I’ve seen in Japan so far. Not far behind were a group of buskers who were basically trying to be as stupid as possible. One guy was doing a dance that involved constantly opening and closing his fly while another guy was dancing like a cross-eyed Wiggles member playing a Playstation after taking too much LSD.

Overall the orientation was lots of fun. The seminars I attended ranged from the very useful to the kinda boring and useless but overall it was worthwhile. I’ve met some good people who I will hopefully catch up with at various times in the future.

Here's some of the guys from my prefecture at a rooftop beer garden:

Flight To Japan

2005-07-30T18:22:00.000-07:00

Flight to Japan:

It wasn’t the best of flights as we had to fly around a cyclone and was therefore an hour late. Despite the detour, we still had regular turbulence which wasn’t too extreme but was enough to make sleeping difficult. I was able to get a couple of hours which as most of you know is pretty good for me so I was happy.

Luckily, I had the chance to meet Dianne and Dorothy (my aunt and nanna respectively) at Melbourne airport as well as my dad and Zack (my brother) at Sydney which was great.

The highlight of the flight was finding an old packet of butter from the previous flight. You can see it in my picture of cool things below. As you can see, it’s broke in my bag but it’s still really cool.

Introduction

2005-07-30T17:56:00.000-07:00

So this is my blog for my times in Japan. I'll try to keep it entertaining as possible for you all! The first few days are going to be pretty long and dry posts about my experiences but once i've settled down things should get a little more interesting for you all.

Part of the reason for making a blog instead of doing those group emails is that i can be as self indulgant as i want. So expect some rambling on and pointless "dave funny" crap.

So as Pink would say: "Let's get this party started"