my first earthquake and some more silly translations

ahoy.
I almost forgot....i felt my first earthquake today. It was a little scary, at first i thought the people in the apartment below were tackling the walls and then realised what was happening. Everything rumbled for maybe 20 secs and then stopped. Good times! Apparently japan hasnt had a big one in years and is overdue, so theres some reassuring news for you all.

This silly sign is outside a convinience store in Goi. Either a poor translation or a massive acid trip.

run-ins with japan's emergency services

well....ive kinda got a backlog of stories at the moment, its been hectic times lately, not always for the right reasons either. My first run-in was with the motherfucking PO-lice. When i got back from my hol last week i was dismayed to see that my bike had been moved from where I parked it before I left. Hmmm. No big deal, people are always parking their bikes in the wrong spot and getting it moved. Problem was, once I found it, someone had locked it on me and taken the keys. See, the bikes here come with these crappy built in locks that dont work. So i leave my built-in lock unlocked (with the keys in - they dont come out) and lock it with a combination lock. So I could obviously undo the combo lock, but was baffled about what to do with the other lock. So i went to the police station to sort it out and an hour of chaos ensued, with pretty much the entire police force of Goi frantically trying to figure out what to do. It was eventually decided they would break the built in lock for me. No problems. Then, one of the police came running back to the station carrying my bike with a huge smile on his face. He had found the keys! They were hanging of a little notch on the handlebars. I felt like a bit of a duffer. Then 3 of them waited and watched while i finally unlocked everything and my success was greeted by a small round of applause. I guess things must be a bit slow at the station.....

ANYWAYS....that was nothing compared to what happened maybe a week later. I was chilling at home one morning when Greg (crazy flatmate) knocked on my door. This was strange as Greg only knocks on my door when something is up. Sure enough, I went outside and he was sprawled on the ground, telling me to call an ambulance. I panicked. He was in amazing pain...something to do with his back or something and I was in a country i didnt know the emergency number for and with the japanese speaking ability equivalent of ballsy's grasp of the english language. I found the emergency number and called and tried to ask for an ambulance but they didnt speak a word of english. Shit. I panicked a bit more and called a workmate who is fluent to try and call for me. I calmed down once he told me it was on its way also once i realised that greg wasnt going to die. He was in pain, but there was no sign of death. Finally the ambulence came after going down the wrong street and then having to drive all the way around the block. Poor greg could hear the friggin thing but it was miles away. The paramedics eventually made it to our apartment...TOOK THEIR SHOES OFF!!! and came inside. Here is someone writhing on the ground in pain and the stupid paramedics still take their shoes off. Anyways, 15 mins of chaos ensued while we tried to translate using Eric on the phone. They finally picked him up and carried him to the ambulance, put their shoes back on awkwardly and took him downstairs. Next we waited in the friggin ambulence for like 15 mins whilst they went over details. What the fuck! Get the man to hospital! They were even making jokes about something or rather. FINALLY...we got to the hospital and i had a nervous wait for a couple of hours for the diagnosis which was........kidney stones! Big fuck off ones apparently. So I left greg in his little bed, doped up on painkillers and went to work, content in the fact that I was pretty much a life-saving hero.

So there....poor old greg still hasnt passed all his stones, apparently there are multiple ones. So he's been on drugs for over a week which probably isnt great for his health.

BOOYAKASHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

getting nude

sadly for all my loyal fans the updates are getting more and more sporadic. But, i have a reason. I have been VERY busy this week, getting into all sorts of wacky adventures. I had 3 days off so i decided to go for an explore of rural/coastal japan, about 4hrs from tokyo. It was a strange experience; i felt very out-of-place and it was nigh impossible to do basic things like withdraw money/book accom/order dinner etc: because practically noone spoke english. So I spend far too much time fighting my way around the basics and not enough time getting into adventures which was annoying. BUT i still found time to do some interesting things as I will now indulge you with.


a rather creepy looking beach. the beaches werent very nice - this was the only went I went to WITH white sand.

*Went to the worlds coolest onsen. It was perched high on a cliff overlooking the pacific. The first time I went there it was completely empty which was cool, but 10 mins later I was sharing a bath with 10 japanese pensioners. It was so funny sitting there with them, a couple spoke a few words of english but they cracked up at everything I said. Sadly I didnt get a photo of me in there with them and now it just looks as though I have rocked up and asked to take a devo photo of random japanese oldies.


the onsen before the invasion


the boys going nuts. They actually took photos when I was in there with them. Would be an interesting one to explain to the grandkids.


the view from the onsen. Decent.

*Had my first traditional Japanese breakfast. Somehow I managed to find accom with help from some very friendly noodle-bar owners. And breakfast was included, yes! It was definately one of the more interesting meals ive had. THere were like 7 bowls of stuff; rice, fish, vegies, yakult!, miso soup and several bits and pieces I had no idea about. I tried a bit of everything - some was tasty, some wasnt tasty, some was genuinely horrible and should never be eaten at 7 o'clock in the morning. But it was one helluva breakfast, no wonder Japanese people live forever, they eat REALLY well.

*Met a zany Japanese widow* (whats the word for a male widow?) at a little restaraunt by the beach. He was 74 but looked in his late 50's and was such a cool guy. His wife died 8 years ago and he was living life to its fullest. Twice a year he drives down to the beach from Tokyo to chill out and relax. He was telling me about his philosophy - 'as long as I have enough money to come to a place like this, drink beer, eat nice food, talk to the young girls....sometimes have the sex, i am happy' HAHA - what a legend. He bought me some beers and we chatted for a couple of hours before I think he was getting a little bit too pissed and had to go home to bed. He also translated the menu for me which I was thankful for as I probably would have ordered a cow's tongue or something rather then the delicious spaghetti marinara I got. Good times. He even gave me his card and told me to call him when I was in tokyo. Probably wont take him up but the offer was nice.


the striking coastline of dogashima. cool name too.

Well they were the most significant events of the trip. It was really cool to get out of the city and see some of Japans nature, there were a couple of really nice bus trips through misty mountains on the way. Also, it was nice to see Japanese people outside the shackles of their boring businessperson lives and actually loosening up and relaxing. I even saw balcony's used for something other than hanging washing!

Anyways....more of Japanese breaking the shackles of work soon....i went to a Japanese BBQ on the weekend but will write about it a little later so as not to put all my eggs in one basket so to speak.

Keep on keeping on
tttimmy

lazy

sorry girls and boys, I have been very lazy with the updates and I know many of you hang on every word that is written here and cant function without reading about my zany adventures. Well, you can now function again! I have had a pretty good week, although my weekend has been shite boring cause I have no money and am hanging out for tuesday to get paid. Last weekend was much more interesting. On sat night I went to an 'hanabi' festival, which is a huge fireworks extravaganza where Japanese people relieve the shackles of their hectic lives for one day and be merry and applaud fireworks. Actually, the applauding bothered me. It was like when people clap at the end of a movie in the cinema. So pointless. Anyways, it was nice to see Japan loosen up a bit. Many girls were wearing traditional 'yukata,' like a summer kimono...even my American co-worker who has lived here for 4 years was kitted up in the male version! Very amusing.

Sunday i played futsal with some teachers and a variety of random Japanese people. I think they were all JEF fans, so i guess that's how everyone kinda knew each other. Good times. We played for 2 hours in horrendous heat. I have never been so sweaty in my entire life though, it was extremely disguisting but fun.

On wednesday despite having no money, I was so bored that I went into tokyo. Turned out to be a great option, i had a really good day. Firstly, I went to shinjuku's skyscraper district. Up one such skyscraper there is an obversation floor 50 odd floors up. And it was free! The sprawl of tokyo is astonishing. It is just never ending buildings and factories and apartments. Really has to be seen to be believed. When your up at centerpoint tower in Syd you kinda go..whoah, its massive, but this is another kettle of fish.


the shinjuku sprawl....mt fuji is in that mountain range in the background

After feeling very small and insignificant amongst enormous buildings, I stumbled across a suburb that doesnt seem to fit into the sprawl at all. It was the newtown of tokyo! Crazy hippies and goths walked streets lined with 2nd hand clothing stores, music shops and cafes. It was great for my sniffer dog instincts, i walked down all these freaky back alleys and stuff and found all sorts of interesting things. Like a weird art gallery style place, with all these small rooms that were all decorated. Japanese artsy types sat around drinking coffee and listening to music and there were some small exhibitions with little guestbooks to record your comments. Very cool but a little freaky.


the freaky art space


creepy

I strolled around for a while looking for some din-dins and found this place called the 'rock chack' or something. It was underground down some stairs and I hummed and harred for a while deciding whether or not i should go in. Thankfully i went in, although I was the only one in the bar! The decorations of the bar were awesome, all sorts of rock memoribilia and a wall with comments scrawled on them presumably by satisfied patrons. The dude behind the bar was cool, he was a massive music fan and I sat and chatted to him about bands and football for a couple of hours in broken English and even more broken Japanese. (thats a lie, the only things i said in japanese were hello and thankyou) He was a huge radiohead fan so we listened to Thom Yorke's new CD and then watched the coachella DVD. Great times! He even knew silverchair and had one of their CDs in the bar! Very impressive. I could have stayed there for longer except i had a mega trip home and had to leave. I got his card and will go back and visit one day.

Great times!!!!! Japanese newtown was very cool....i just wish that japanese people were bigger so I could actually buy stuff in the awesome clothing shops.

Im going on an adventure this week. I have three days off and am going to travel a few hours down to a peninsula where there are tiny onsen towns and beaches and stuff. Twill fill u in with all the goss from there. It will be saucy getting nude again.

peace out y'all

oooooooo

ooooh, i nearly forgot, i took some very stalkerish photos of Japanese people asleep in Yokohama. The first pic is taken in downtown Yokohama, i must admit I got some stranger looks then normal after taking a series of pictures of this guy. He did look a little bit too dead for my liking. I reckon Adrian will enjoy these photos more than anyone else.







peace out

drama in yokohama

it must be true, it rhymes!

It was quite dramatic as my experimental 'photo diary' entry will show. As an unrelated prefix, I'd like to share a funny story that happened in my kids class today. In a class of 7-9 year olds, we played a team game and they had to pick a team name. Now, most little whippersnappers this age pick something like 'stars,' or 'rainbows' or 'robots' or something, but one kid today chose 'mayonnaise.' Very strange and funny.

ANYWAYS, onto the real story.

On thursday I went to Yokohama, Japan's 2nd largest city, about an hour from Goi. I decided to take the bus rather then endure another boring train journey with sleepy businessmen and smelly foreigners.

me on the bus! no real point to this photo but adds to the continuity of the blog

First impressions of Yokohama werent great to be honest. You enter through the industrial area which is, like most industrial areas, quite dull, smelly and overbearing. I kind of have an interest in them though, its a completely different world in these areas and i think im a little fascinated by the unknown. Anyways, after leaving the bus and walking 5 mins into the station I realised that I had committed one of my bigger brain explosions in recent times. I had left my wallet on the bus. A minute of panic followed, with me desperately trying to figure out what to do. Luckily, Japan is the most honest country in the world and also the most helpful in a crisis. By chance the first bus offical person I spoke to spoke English and after half an hour my wallet was returned, contents unchanged. PHEW! (mental note...do NOOO do that again)

Things got significantly better after my stroke of good fortune. I went to Japan's tallest building and went on the worlds fastest lift. It is mighty quick. It went 70 odd floors (300m) in about 10 seconds. It even has a speedo in it! People were popping their ears when they got to the top, but iron ears bunting was too strong for that. Anyways, the view was impressive. Apparently u can see mt fuji from there on a clear day but I havent seen a clear day since I've left australia so i dont know about that. Oddly there is an aquarium up there too. Also, nearly all Japanese buildings have helipads on their roofs. Excessive safety or paranoia?

from Japan's tallest tower (duh!)


an example of Japan's suburban sprawl


all the japanese were going "nemo! nemo!"


proof i wasnt lying about the worlds fastest lift

Nextly (invented it...get over it) I moseyed into Chinatown which was more impressive than Sydney's chinatown, but less impressive than China itself (I'd imagine) There was the best temple I have seen in my short but thorough temple looking career. Very colourful.


an out of context but amusing picture

After I got tired here I decided to make the trek to a soccer stadium to watch the Yokohama Marinos v Celtic. I should note that this was a major reason I decided to come to Yokohama today. Sadly, it was an expensive waste of time. Celtic were more or less appalling and the stadium was way too big to hold the meagre crowd. Yokohama won 3-0. I dont think Celtic had a shot on target. I was dissapointed in Celtics lack of quality. Even though it wasnt that strong a team people like Neil Lennon, Alan Thompson, Shunsuke Nakamura and Stanislav Varga played but were shite. I was amazed at how many passes went astray and how poor their first touch was. Even in the warmup, their shooting was really poor. Anyway, I now hate celtic as they coerced me out of $50 with the lure of my first taste of European football.

i cant remember which picture i chose, presumably the one in which you can actually see something

Hmm...i had to hurry to get a train home in time. It wasnt the best trip home I could have hoped for. It ended up taking 2.5 hrs to get home which didnt please me the slightest. SO THERE! Drama in Yokohama. Decidedly undramatic actually.

In the future i will be....watching fireworks at some end of summer festival thingy tomorrow night, playing futsal sunday night....actually that's it.

much love and respect to you all.

p.s- im not doing something like this again.....far too much effort

sleepy japanese and more of the same

good evening all.

Ive been a little slack on ye olde blogus updates but how can you find time when your life is all rugby and bitches. Ive been a little busy lately, over the weekend i went to the j-league, sung some more karaoke and played poker (pick up a lazy 15k...only 200 bucks but sounds impressive.) Ive cursed the j-league team here though, they've only ever lost 3 games in their stadium and ive been there for 2 of them :( I told u my fortune was bad.

Oh, i remembered a piece of japanese efficiency that i forgot to mention in my groundbreaking post "japanese efficiency." On the trains around Tokyo a voice and a little screen tells you which side of the train the doors will open. Kinda pointless and also confusing because they tell u that 'the doors on the left side will open' but then u have to figure out which way ure facing if you know what i mean. Efficient but largely pointless.

Efficiency of a different sort can be seen in japanese sleeping patterns. Everyone here is an example of Adrian or Brown, i.e, always falling asleep in strange places or at inappropriate time. The japanese sleep EVERYWHERE; on the train (sometimes standing up), at bars, in their cars, on the ground, in restaurants. The best thing they do is pull over in their cars, turn the hazard lights on and have a kip with the engine still running. I even saw a guy pull over on a back street, pull out a mattress and have a snooze outside the car. I think so many japanese people are just so overworked that they are constantly exhausted. Its kind of like in the sims where your characters fall asleep wherever they are if they dont get enough sleep. I am living a video game.

I had my first taste of extreme japanese friendliness the other night. We had to wait on a train for 20mins at around midnight on friday night and these two Japanese business men were sitting across us with a bag full of beers and snacks. As soon as we sat down we said hello (by said hello i mean they talked japanese and we nodded and smiling) and they gave us a beer each and some snacks for the trip home. Very nice, but very annoying that we couldnt say anything to them besides 'thankyou' and 'see you later.'

by the way the counter on this blog is fucked. It was at over 200 a week ago and then i checked back and it was at 180 odd and then 190 and back to 180 and now its at 198 or something. Confusing. Basically the moral of the counter is that this is one of the webs most* popular blogs! Which is a credit not only to my humorous and charismatic adventures but to you, the kind reader who chooses to waste your time reading it.

Much love to u all....
sotnub


*least