Find your power animal. Slide!

I guess I learned how to snowboard this weekend. I'd like to say it's easier than it looks (to brag) or that it's harder than it looks (to compensate), but no, it's just as hard as it looks. It's sliding down a mountain with a plank strapped to your feet.

This weekend was the annual Nagano ski and snowboarding trip, and the English teachers of Yamanashi made an exodus for the mountains of Hakuba. The caravan began in Kofu, reaching the Lady Diana and St. George hotel around 23:00.

On the way, we encountered the strangest of oasii [sic], a rest area with not only soap but warm water for washing hands. I have been holding off on mentioning what I will now mention, but Japan is a big proponent of the 'grin and bear it' theory. Houses are built with no insulation or central heat, but you grin and bear it and turn on your kerosene heater. The kerosene fumes can be toxic without the proper ventilation, so you must keep your windows open while the heater is on. In most sinks, the water is whatever the temperature the pipes are, so you wash your freezing hands and face with freezing water. The availability of soap can vary from place to place, but it's not uncommon to do your business, freeze your dis-disinfected hands, then have no way to dry them. Shake, shake, shake. Wipe on pants.

Sometimes you get to combine the 'grin and bear it' theory with the 'we are all suffering theory,' meaning a room full of teachers with cold bento lunches will eat their food cold rather than go through the inconvenience and red tape of every single teacher taking a turn with the microwave. At least we have soap in our bathrooms.

Back to Nagano. The great thing about these big events is that they often bring people out of the wood or mountainworks. The prefecture is filled with lovely people, yet you don't always see them for various reasons. Nancy and Jessica, for example, invite each other over to their respective homes in Fujiyoshida and sit in the same room on their computers typing 'lol's and 'omg's to each other over the internet. That's what you do, right?

I often joke with Charlotte that she is overly concerned, obsessed even, with the things that I do. After I had sarcastically boasted of my snowboarding prowess (before even seeing a snowboard), she proceeded to draw a picture of me upside down in the snow while vomiting peas, of all things. Other people seemed to be really concerned with my attire for the night, as Seth immediately yelled "What are you wearing?!" when I removed my coat. Lee asked if I had "come directly from work," before the argument arose of whether my sweater looked more Cosby or Mr. Roger's. My shrinking self-esteem put me right to sleep.

I picked up my rental gear the next morning. My snowboard had a picture of a clown on the front and a picture of JESUS on the back. With him on my side, I was ready to hit the slopes. And hit them I did, falling backward, falling forward, spinning and then falling. I never managed to land completely upside down (as Charlotte had foretold), but snow, once a pillowy paradise, quickly turned into father winter's comedy of errors. But I learned... to fall less and less until there was more and more actual snowboarding.

Halfway down the mountain was a bar serving mulled wine and meat pies. Mmm, "m" words. In the late afternoon, Sachi and Kim played their guitars there while singing. This is known as a concert, gig, or show. The after-party reached a peak when we locked the Aussie bartender out of his own bar and took pictures behind the counter. It was no coincidence we were asked to leave shortly afterward. He was cool about it, though. No worries.

Tokyo: Day 3

If your knowledge of sumo wrestling is limited to repeatedly hitting the punch button until Edmund Honda performed his hundred hand slap, you might have the wrong idea. The match would have been over by then. And I wasn't expecting hadoukens or shoryukens, but these guys are done in seconds. So if you do a little math and I tell you that I watched six hours of sumo wrestling, a lot went down. A lot more than flesh into clay.

As is the case with many things Japanese, sumo involves a lot of custom and class division. You can't wear your hair a certain way until you've earned it. If you win a match, you kind of squat in the ring for a few seconds while the loser leaves the arena. There are also time limits that extend as the higher ranks fight. These time limits are used to squat and look at your opponent before you decide to get back up and throw salt into the ring. You repeat this routine any number of times before the two wrestlers decide they're ready. Also, the ring is a lot smaller than expected (4.55 meters in diameter), so you end up with the NBA blueprint: Huge men in tiny places.

There are six two-week tournaments a year, but this one was special because it marked the return of Asashoryu, the grand champion yokozuna from Mongolia who feigned injury in order to return to his homeland. There, he was caught playing soccer (!) on his "bum" leg. A grand champion sumo wrestler playing soccer? I can't think of a joke.

Asashoryu, of course, would wrestle in the final match of the day. The posturing and intimidation period ran quite long for this bout, so lots of salt was thrown. My boy Asa went for a head/neck grab of sorts, but failed and somehow got turned around. If I learned anything in the six hours, I'd say "turning around" is not a good idea. Asashoryu was promptly SHOVED from the ring face first into the surrounding clay. He may have landed on a judge, but I couldn't quite see over the flood of red seat cushions that went flying into the ring. This is what you do when a yokozuna loses. It is said that sumo wrestlers resemble giant babies. I will not argue with what is said. Mr. A looked stunned and crestfallen as if he had just poopied his pants. Poor Asa. I wonder if he later cried into his bowl of chanko.

Tokyo: Day 2

Back in the States, I love browsing bookstores without actually buying anything. It's not as fun when you can't read any of the book jackets, so I was looking forward to visiting the well-known English bookstore in Shinjuku. Though the selection was dominated by Stephen King and Dean Koontz novels, I did pick up the latest John Irving and Douglas Coupland works. I will read these at my desk extra obviously when salesmen approach me with better cell phone and insurance plans. It's much easier than confounding them with my inability to speak Japanese. Sometimes I even surround myself in a little fort made of a few dictionaries and the "Japanese for JETs" book. Not to mention (though I will mention) that the "Japanese salesman" is already an enigmatic figure because his societal and fiscal obligations are at odds. He must sell things while being as apologetic, sincere, and non-pushy as possible. Looking up from my desk could cause him to approach, but it's worth seeing some of the lowest, longest bows I've found in Japan. The bow seems to say, "I'm incredibly sorry that I'm bothering you at work, but if you buy these encyclopedias I can feed my daughter and wife, but don't buy them because I need the money, only buy them if you really want them, but it'd be great if you wanted them because I could really use the money for the food I mentioned earlier. Help."

After the bookstore, we went to find lunch. I'm not the least ashamed to say we went to Wendy's. We went to Wendy's. We went to Wendy's. I loved it.

Next was the Asakusa area of Tokyo, where there's a few temples and random items of amusement. People threw coins over masses of other people into a square area for good luck. Lauren, who came up Sunday morning, shook a large metal cylinder until it dropped a stick with a fortune wrapped around it. And unless they translated the Japanese incorrectly, I think 2008 is gonna be her year.

Afterward, we went back to Shinjuku for one of the few touristy things I am genuinely happy about doing. We went to the New York Bar at the Park Hyatt, the same bar where a certain Mr. Murray met a certain Miss Johannson for the first time in a certain movie that may have inspired the naming of this weblog. We were seated by the window (a ridonculous view of Tokyo), but I kept looking over my shoulder to the bar stools where they sat. And since we had to take two different elevators to get to the bar in the first place, we made up for it with a 45,000 dollar bar tab. Ok, it was yen. Semantics.

It was Seth's birthday, so we headed to a famous jazz club called DUG where Coltrane and Davis have played. That's Jim Coltrane and John Davis, but who cares? Semantics. For such a famous jazz club, there wasn't live music on Sunday, so we went to another jazz club that... didn't have live music.

Regardless, we stayed. We put Stevie Wonder's "Happy Birthday" on the jukebox.

Tokyo: Day 1

Two Mondays ago was a national holiday known as "Coming of Age Day." All twenty-year-olds were supposed to celebrate the transition into adulthood. I've apparently been an adult for almost five years now without even knowing it, so I went into Tokyo for the weekend to find out what grownups do.

First stop was the Tsukijishijo fish market where you can get the rawest of raw fish since it's pulled right out of the water each morning. Many adults get there early enough to sample the fresh catch (before 7 a.m.), but Dave, Charlotte, and I arrived around 4 p.m.

We snaked down an alley to find men and women peddling their sushi wares. And since sushi pretty much all looks the same on paper (or blown-up poster), we walked into the first restaurant on our right.

In hindsight I regret the experience, as I'll never be able to eat other sushi again. It was that good. The seared albacore was a prize; its blowtorched body melted like butter.

After sushi, the three of us met Amy from college in Ginza. We went to the Sony Showroom, about six floors of the newest Sony gear all there for public handling. They had two new products I had recently read about: the Rolly, an mp3 player shaped like a small football that lights up and dances based on the tune. It's the perfect $400 party favor that will surely disappear shortly after its debut! You increase or decrease the volume by spinning the device clockwise and counterclockwise, and you skip tracks by pushing the Rolly forward or backward. It shook its "hips" during "Livin' La Vida Loca."

"Look, Amy! It's a Ricky Martin robot! Remember Ricky Martin? He's back... in robot form."

The other fancy item was the newest in TV technology. Not that this means anything to anyone, but apparently the best TVs now have a 20,000:1 contrast ratio. This little badboy has a 1,000,000:1 ratio. It made real life look like VHS. Too bad the largest screen they can make right now is 11 inches, and that guy will cost you $2000.

On our search for dinner, we wandered down an alley of aroma in Roppongi. A man attempted to lure us into his restaurant with promises of a warm place to stay and relax. He KEPT saying how warm it was and how relaxing it would be, so I began the question the validity of the statement. I pictured a place with no heat where we would be under a lot of pressure for some reason.

We walked away from this man only to come across two signs offering intriguing options. One sign had a Jack-o-lantern picture and the words "Horror Dining" in spooky lettering. I'd heard of ninja restaurants and prisoner restaurants, but never a horror restaurant. Do you eat scary food? Or are you frightened while eating regular food? The second sign read "Fetish Bar" and had two pixie-ish creatures surrounding the words. Chotto matte kudasai! How did you know that my favorite thing to do is walk away from a man offering a warm place to eat and relax with exactly three friends before looking at two strange signs and then drinking at a bar surrounded by exactly two women who resemble faeries? I love doing that. And do you like red herring? Because we didn't go into either of those places.

Instead, we had Thai food on the 13th floor of a building. Amy, who had recently returned from a month stay in Thailand, attested to the authenticity, and I, who enjoy eating, attested to the deliciousness of the chicken curry. The bathroom wall was a full pane of glass, so people could see right in there if they so desired. Was the fetish bar across the street looking in?

Anyway, here is where we slept. It's a capsule hostel.



Stay tuned for write-ups of day 2 and 3. The third day may or may not include this.

"We the dope boys of the year, drinks is on the house."

I never wrote about my 24 hours of fame, so I'll do that now. Here. I will combine the twenty-six agreed upon drawings in order to tell you how I feel. This way, you can access my thoughts from a box that sits in your home. You're doing it right now. I can see you, %n.

At the end of November, the teachers of Nirasaki Technical played Nirasaki High in its annual rivalry soccer match. "Your kids might be smarter than ours, but let's see who can kick a sphere into a rectangle! With your feet!"

Like most things in Japan, the game started exactly as scheduled (16:45), so I missed the beginning due to working at Norin that day. When I arrived, a fellow teacher took off his jersey and handed it over. He gave me the shirt off his back. I warmed up and stretched, but I wouldn't be going in until the second half.

We were down 1-0 at halftime due to a blown call by the referee, one of our own students! He signaled for a free kick as a result of a defender passing the ball back to our keeper who allegedly handled it with his handlers. But he didn't! He crouched down to pick the ball up before he remembered the rule and backed away! I was flipping out on the sideline while everyone else was passively accepting the call. This is no time to be Japanese, Japan. Think of the stakes. Does Nirasaki High deserve the kids who perform better on standardized tests and the teachers who perform better at organized sports?

The momentum shifted in the second half after I scored the equalizer. The soccer team's assistant coach played a nice through ball that I cut across the keeper's body before slotting it into the open net. The crowd went wildish. I was lifted into the air by teachers I had shared only a handful of words with.

"Nice shoot," they said.

Ignored tense confusion, I did.

Actually, "nice shoot" is just one of many mistranslated phrases that have entered the Japanese vernacular. It's the same reason people say "see you" rather than "see ya" or "see ya later." (Trust me, it's quite jarring when you hear it.)

We possessed the ball for much of the second half, but we couldn't score another goal. Which is why we went into the penalty shootout. This being Japan, the penalty shootout would more closely resemble a row of five women from each school lining up to play rock, papers, scissors. By closely resemble, I mean this is exactly what happened. We lost the first round. We lost the second round. We lost three rounds in a row.

But there's always the after party.

Teachers from both schools caravan'd to a local izakaya, and we kampai'd for the occasion.

Several dishes were set before us, including a fried appetizer described as kaki aka persimmons. I bit into it expecting refreshing fruit only to get oyster. Ah, yes. Kaki can mean either.

I have mentioned this before, but it is uncustomary to refill your own glass in Japan. This is code for: If you're a foreignor, you will never see the bottom of your cup because teachers and principals who rarely ever say a single word to you will constantly come over saying "nice shoot," pour you more beer, produce English that has never been heard before, give you food, call you a friend, say they like you, ask you if you're married, ask you to stay another two years, be really surprised that you like sushi, make you take your glasses off and hand them to a fellow teacher because apparently there has been an inside joke for several months that you look exactly like this guy, only he wears crisp suits to work while you wear sweaters over your wrinkled dress shirts to avoid having to iron them and he doesn't wear glasses so you should let him try yours on so that everyone can laugh at how similar you two look.

The next day at school, several students who watched the game approached me to say "nice shoot." I appreciated the sentiment, but a bitter taste lingered in my mouth because of both the bad free kick call and the whole deciding-the-game-by-rock-paper-scissors thing. I stared at my supposed twin and decided that he doesn't really look like me. He doesn't even wear glasses.