June 20, 2006
The Best Birthday Hau... Party Ever
So last Sunday, my neighbor (and very good friend) arranged a birhtday dinner for me at a fancy Italian restaurant near the coast.
We got our own room with a lovely view of the classic Enoden train line. This part I already knew about. In my mind, I was imagining people would show up, eat some good italian food, drink some Italian wine, wish me a happy birthday, slip me a couple of cards, and head home. I was envisioning a very low key dinner.
Instead, those mutinous people banded together (as mutinous mutineers often do) and chipped in for these rockin' heels
ruffly green shirt
funky black/grey/white flower brooch
a travel journal (for my upcoming Shikoku pilgrimage) that has little pockets throughout it to keep mementos
and the sweetest group birthday card book ever!
In addition to the group present I also got:
From Kate: A whole bunch of panda stuff. And by a whole bunch, I mean a whole bunch! This girl went a little panda-loco at the local stores for me. How sweet!
Let's see if I can name everything: panda socks, panda towel ring, panda notebook, two panda stuffed toys, panda mini-duster, panda mini-lunch box with stationary in it, panda stickers, panda poscard, panda rusk, panda candy yogurt, panda lollipops, and panda chocolate dip sticks. Phew!
Oh, and to top it all off, a panda birthday card.
I guess this is the result of my dressing up in a panda suit and stilettos and lip synching "You give love a bad name" by Bon Jovi.
From Andrew and Daisuke: Special underoos, a skull and bones pin, and a beaded/sequined necklace/neck drape thing. And the best package.
From Frootyloops: Lombard Caramel corn from San Francisco.
From Francis: A cat paw (which I proceeded to include in almost every picture thereafter)
From Matt: A real Cuban cigar.
From Antje: A birthday card comparing fruitcakes and ALTs (he he) and a "Panda Shock" soda drink eraser.
From Frances: An excellent handmade card with "all things Ema" word search on it.
From Al: Forchsticks (yes, they are chopsticks and forks combined and YES! they are STARING at you) and colorful wavy hairpins
I really hope I didn't forget anyone/thing/kindness/gift...
After the gift receiving, I proceeded to eat and drink wine, take pictures (with and without cat paw) and try on my new shoes. And of course, mandatory attempts were made a booty popping by several of the group. Oh master D showed us how it was done.
In the end, everyone, in addition to being so incredibly generous in the gift department, also paid for my dinner, which was... pricey.
I feel incredibly lucky (and guilty) for getting such special treatment by my friends in Japan. I probably can never repay all this kindness and generosity, but I will certainly try! Thank you thank you, if you all are reading this. This was an incredibly memorable evening.
Here are some links to pictures that friends took of at the party:
Funk Fresh Andrew's Account of the Evening
Posted by Emarrific at 12:52 PM | Comments (4)
February 28, 2006
Pictures: AL's birthday and Yakiniku Tabehoudai
This weekend was busy busy. I haven't put up all the pictures, but so far I have:
AL's birthday party:
and Yakiniku Tabehoudai (all-you-can-eat-and-imbibe grilled meat) party afterwards.
Posted by Emarrific at 08:05 AM | Comments (2)
December 08, 2005
Keikendan turns 25!
I'll let the pictures do most of the talking. I took lots of video, but due to all the frequent name dropping and embarrassing situations, I've decided not to post them. However, if you're interested in the video, know me, were there or for some reason think you DESERVE them, let me know.
Amusing party moments:
-a fabulous scarf given to birthday girl by yours truly
-discussion of how one party member used to think Irish men had private parts the size of Pez dispensers
-pass the parcel game (you pass the parcel around and when the music stops whoever is holding the package has to open one layer of wrapping and follow the directions contained therein). See videos of the fun the ensued.
-a rather special birthday song
-dancing on command
-sexy eating pictures
-quiz with teams named "jesus", "foot", "jerk goat", "fava bean" and "apalachia"
-chubby bunny
-special birthday madlib courtesy of yours truly (can be seen at Keikendan's website, in my links section)
-bacon re-enactment
Posted by Emarrific at 09:51 PM | Comments (0)
November 05, 2005
Gorgeous 23 Degree Celcius Weather Made Me Do It!
日本語バージョンは後から...
Today started off rather normally for a November day... it was overcast, it was a bit chilly, and I was hunkering down for a weekend of grey rain, chores and studying. But then around eight a.m., what is this? The sun started to peek through. I hurried over to the computer and looked up the weather for today. Today's high temperature would be 23 degrees celsius? Hot damn. I have to get outside. Screw cleaning (I've been screwing it pretty hard for the last two or three weeks) and off to:
Fujisawa: For obsessive indecision over Kamakura guide book/map
Gokurakuji: For eating gokurakuji teishoku at three p.m. and do a short walk on the back (but extremely care-worn) trails to the northern area of Kamakura with Alamode.
Yokohama: For a 45 minute quickie study session, middle eastern cuisine, belly dancing and a combo strawberry, grape and rose hooka with Chalimar, Alamode, Ironya and Laetichan.
Oh. You're still reading? OK, here's some more details, for the Readers Who Want to Saber©
Maps: There are few perfect maps for walking in Japan. See in Jpaan, there are no signs for road names, therefore maps need to include many landmarks and details. So, for me the walker, the map scale should be less than 1:10000 to include enough details and roads so I can find interesting places to walk. Also, I hate unfolding maps; I like them to be in book form. But I want to be able to see the bigger context in which the smaller detailed maps fall into. I also want the map to cover enough area so that I could walk for half a day and not walk right off the map. Then, I'd like the map book to include a few hikes that are several hours to half a day long, a few details about major tourist attractions, and be compact (B5 size). I'm not asking for too much, am I?
Gokurakuji: The sign outside said "Special Gokurakuji Bento -- 900 yen" Like all good Japanese people, I couldn't resist the lure of eating a local specialty. We sat down at the solid dark wood counter and chatted as the owner went about grilling the fish and her cat meowed in the background. The bento was a giant two layer container. Rice with shirasu (mini white fishes), nori (seaweed) and ikura (large fish eggs) made up the bottom layer. The top layer was a potpourri of side dishes (mustard greens, soy bean mash with carrots, chikuzeni--veggies boiled in japanese style soup) and grilled fish. The fish was soft, moist and delicious. The bento also came with miso and pickled veggies.
Kamakura "hike": The trail was so worn down from traffic that even the stones looked a bit shiny and careworn. I think I prefer to keep my hiking to the more distant, less-travelled mountains now. I think my favorite part of Kamakura is not the nature, but the way the architecture blends in with the nature. I'll probably stick to the quiet back streets from now on.
Middle Eastern Restaurant in the heart of Yokohama:
During the walk in Kamakura, Alamode mentioned that Chalimar was inviting friends to go to a Middle Eastern restaurant in Yokohama. She had met the owner in church, and had been thrust a brochure. I decided, what the heck.
We get there, sit down and order. I ordered the Tunisia course which was a steep 4200 yen (about 40 dollars US). We didn't have a choice... Friday and Saturday nights are dinner course only. But it was worth it.
The meal started with a kind of Mediterranean tasting chopped salad: tomatoes, cucumbers, vinegar, oil, herbs. Then came a spicy tomato soup. Next course was Brick: dumpling with potato and egg in it with a wedge of lemon to squeeze on top. It was delicious!
All throughout, Ironya (Alamode's Japanese guy friend) was trying repeatedly to say "Thank you" in Nepalese to an anxious and flighty Nepalese waiter. Ironya's face was lit up with a slight pink hue as he kept on speaking unintelligibly in a mix of Japanese, English and Nepalese.
Then, there was a slight interruption for a belly dancer. The dancer had a perfect gym body... thin, firm and nice breasts. She was technically excellent but she lacked *sexiness*. I'm not sure if it was lack of hip curves or a certain "wild abandon". Still, it was fun to watch her expertly handle a sash, castanets, a sword and a gold cane. She also got some of the audience to participate, including Chalimar, Laetichan and me. It was kind of embarrassing, though, because she tried to get us to imitate her shaking her shoulders and hips, but we just couldn't do it.
And now it was time for the main course: Chicken Tajin with couscous. Dessert was an almond pudding and mint tea.
Just as we were thinking it was time to say goodbye, the owner comes out in white robes holding a HOOKA, pipes draped over his shoulder. I've never sucked on a hooka, so I was a bit unsure about it. I've smoked a couple cigarettes here and there, and find them harsh unless accompanied by alcohol. That night, I had not a drop of alcohol in my system. Still, I apprehensively took a tiny suck. It was really mild and tasted faintly of strawberries. I sucked some more to get more of the taste, and also to get smoke to come out of my nose. It really did taste like strawberries. On closer inspection, we really were smoking real strawberries with some kind of ash around it. The owner told us that it was strawberry, grape and rose leaves.
Smoking the hooka made me kind of giddy, and then made me sleep in really late the next day.
Anyway, here is a video of us sucking on the hooka, taken with my new cellphone. Enjoy!
Posted by Emarrific at 11:52 PM | Comments (3)
October 23, 2005
Kanagawa Sports Day AVI Videos
Here are a few videos I took at Kanagawa Sports Day. These are large AVI files... so I highly suggest you right click and save it to your computer first instead of trying to watch it off of my site, as the speed will be incredibly slow!
Saitama Ganbare!
It's Kanagawa Time!
Ping Pong Relay Pass Off
Gratuitous Cuteness: Little Boy Playing Ball with his Da-da in Yoyogi Park
Enjoy. :D
Posted by Emarrific at 10:26 PM | Comments (0)
October 19, 2005
Kanagawa Sports Day
I just put up pictures of Kanagawa Sports Day. I took lots of crappy pictures and action shots. Hope you enjoy them. I won't even pretend that I will ever write any sort or description of the events. I didn't participate, anyways. I spent most of sports day on the sidelines, thinking fondly of my wonderful down pillow at home while quitely but bravely suffering through a cold. :D
Posted by Emarrific at 01:19 AM | Comments (3)
September 14, 2005
Ilbonito's Yoyogi Park Birthday Party
Key words and phrases: humid, anpanman ball, tooth brush, inflatable kangaroo perversions, tiara sharing, much alcohol consuming, broken racket badminton, frisbee, friends of friends, random German guy, near naked men (why?), possible hiking friend, crazy budget
I'm too lazy to string these words together into what might be considered good prose. If you're creative, feel free to try.
I know I haven't been posting much. I've been having a little blog identity crisis--so what's new?! Every time I think about writing I think either, "What is the purpose of this thing," or "What can I write about well?" I'm thinking of making code names for all the people I know, so I can back stab more freely. Just kidding, of course...
Posted by Emarrific at 03:41 PM | Comments (1)
July 07, 2005
July 4 Bowling
I went bowling with some teachers from one of the special needs schools I visit every couple of months. Here is the photographic evidence of how fun it was.
Posted by Emarrific at 08:49 PM | Comments (0)
Fourth of July BBQ
I got invited to a down home BBQ with lots of food this weekend. There was lots of food, meat, dancing in the kitchen, and adult pictionary. Woo.
Posted by Emarrific at 08:26 AM | Comments (0)
June 20, 2005
The Hostest With The Decoration-est
So, I've finally put up some pictures of my birthday party hosted by friend and coworker AD. (Read more about it in the June 18 post.) A lot of the pictures were blurry for some reason... So I did a lot of photoshop on them so they looked even more crappy than the original pictures. It's my special talent. Will even put it on my resume someday. Enjoy!
Posted by Emarrific at 10:34 PM | Comments (2)
June 18, 2005
Un Birthday Party Pour Moi!
I got my very own birthday party this year, decorated and well-attended! Yay! Thank you sooo much AD for organizing the party and hosting it in your house. I hope the clean up wasn't too bad! And thanks to everyone for coming. I love seeing you all. Pictures and sounds to come soon.
Did I just make excessive use of exclamation marks?!!?
Posted by Emarrific at 01:29 PM | Comments (0)
A Non-Underwear-ular Brief Update
What a whirlwind couple of weeks. I've been completely swamped with social engagements and actual work-work that I haven't had time to sit down and update for a while. Here are the major things that have happened:
- My mom came to and is in Japan for a total of three weeks.
- Went to a gay bar in Shinjuku with my mom, AD, and his mom.
- Ate Mexican food
- English teacher "enkai" (office party) at a nice euro-restaurant. I put enkai in quotes because it wasn't all-you-can-drink-and-eat, but just a nice dinner. How refreshing. But no drunken antics to laugh at either.
- Traveled all about and helped run several workshops for elementary school teachers on "How to teach English to elementary school kids". Right now there is a movement in Japanese government (at various levels) to make English part of the Japanese elementary school curriculum.
- Met with a bunch of Brasserie Tomo regulars to eat and drink in a Shinjuku izakaya (Drinking/eating establishment).
- Tokyo Recontractor's Conference: three days of attending speeches, participating in helpful workshops and making professional contacts. (More details in the June 8th entry)
- My birthday and my boyfriend's birthday overlapped. (See yesterday's entry)
- Practiced, practiced and practiced for tonight's JET talent show. Aw yeah. We are so going to rock the house down.
I'm getting an extra day off this weekend, so I'll have some time to veg. I can't wait! Maybe I'll get some fun photos, videos and sounds up.
Posted by Emarrific at 01:13 PM | Comments (1)
June 17, 2005
Overlapping Birthdays
Because we live on opposite sides of the international date line, SE and my birthdays actually overlapped and we got to be birthday people on the same day. Weeeeee!
So, I'm officially 28. Actually, for most of last year I was under the delusion that I was 28. Then I calculated my birthday a few months ago and realized, hey, I'm actually not 28! But I still felt like I was 28.
Therefore, when Steve asked me how it felt to be 28, I said, "Just the same. I was 28 last year too."
SE gave me an mp3 player which I immediately downloaded music onto and hung around my next on my way out the door. I felt myself melding into the "young set" as I silently mouthed along with my favorite songs and occasionally busted a move. He he.
There is also a mp3 recorder function. I went wild with that and recorded two of my classes at school, an English conversation with two girls who actually want to learn English so badly that they come to talk to me every week after school, and the near-entirety of the birthday party that Andrew organized for me. I think people really enjoyed me sticking my new recording device in their face. Yeah, baby, yeah.
In the future, maybe I'll use it more clandestinely, to record sounds on the street. Or maybe I'll use it to record my audition for American Idol or a broadcast karaoke show. Possibilities? Endless....
Now I have lots of samples of native speech to use in my English classes. I don't know if it is completely unrealistic to think that I will actually edit all these sound bites and use them, but at least I'll have them in the future for memories or a major electronic auto-biography. Or maybe if one of my friends gets famous, I can make good money blackmailing them. He he. (Rubs hands together and cackles like a bowl of Rice Krispies.)
Posted by Emarrific at 01:17 PM | Comments (1)
June 15, 2005
Coming to aMErica!
Remember that song and also the Eddie Murphey (not of Williams College fame) movie? Anyway... I just sold my soul to Bette Midler for an airplane ticket to the US in August. I am hoping to do one week in the San Francisco area and one week in the Boston area. Boston peeps, get in touch. See some of you in August! Yay!
I am hoping to see you all and gather some super cool materials for class. Things which appeal to the young set but is also usable in a low-level English class. I am also thinking of buying a sound recorder or video camera and recording real live native speakers doing every day things. Will YOU be the next victim? (Maniacal laughter in the background as the scene fades out to a black screen.)
Posted by Emarrific at 04:47 PM | Comments (0)
May 03, 2005
Neighborhood friend, Sister, Frenchman and Japanese truck driver
These are the characters with whom I ate an unexpected outdoor spaghetti and meat sauce dinner last night. I spent most of the evening either arguing/discussing any number of the frenchman's funny statements or translating what was going on to the Japanese truck driver who is a neighbor of my neighborhood friend. For instance, Frenchman said it's a myth that it is dangerous for women to hitch hike alone, especially in Japan, if you are hitch hiking from parking lots and can pick your drivers. So he would encourage his girlfriend (my neighborhood friend's sister) to hitch hike alone in Japan if she wanted to. I personally think that it may be safer in general in Japan, but I just don't buy it, and neither did anybody else at the dinner. (Although the truck driver seemed aimiable enough and was implying that maybe the guy had a point.)
Actually, the sister and frenchman hitchhiked here from way south in Japan and were planning to go back that way... but, the Frenchman would stop off halfway and the sister would have to hitchhike for a significant portion alone. I don't think she's cool with that so maybe she'll take a bus instead.
The Japanese truck driver was pretty cool. He was pretty short, even by Japanese standards, but very wiry. He's into carrying mikoshi (portable shrines) at festivals. He tried to show us some pictures, but in all of them the people were covering up the portable shrines, so he was a little embarassed. He drives out to Saitama prefecture a lot, which means he has to get up at 4:30 a.m. everyday. Wow. That's damn early. He also doesn't drink very much, maybe because of his size. He says he gets drunk easily.
My neighborhood friend is really amazing... she can approach many different people and just start asking them questions and talking to them. I'm really shy when it comes to strangers and don't really approach them that often. I like having a context of some sort. Perhaps this stranger and I are in the same class, work in the same building, are at the same festival. In a sense, we are not complete strangers.
Other funny things the Frenchman has said:
People can get injured really easily using weight machines (not free weights, mind you) and that it is much better just to do pull ups and push ups. But then he kept on talking about how on the tenth set you are so tired that you just have to let go and everything comes crashing down and it is really dangerous... Well, I think it's pretty clear the guy just doesn't know how to use a machine. He he.
Victims often deserve what they get. Often it's their own stupidity and their bad vibe/fear which gets them into trouble and they compeltely could have done something about it. Like the guy who walks around in a sketchy part of Brazil with a big camera and wads of cash. He's asking for it.
You should always cook the ground meat in the tomato sauce because otherwise it will overcook on it's own in a pan. (Actually, the ground meat was nice and tender in the sauce, so I might experiment making meat sauce that way, loathe as I am to admit that that guy might be right. Hed hee!) This is from his experience with Italians. He says they always do it that way. So if the italians do it, it must be right!
Anyway, the man talks and talks. I don't remember ever meeting a guy who talks so much, although my memory is, admitedly, pretty awful. Unfortunately I got no time to talk to my friend or her sister as the conversation was completely dominated by me and the frenchman arguing. I feel kind of bad like that, but I can't resist that chance to tear down someone else's generalizations. Call me Poe Moe.
Posted by Emarrific at 01:37 PM | Comments (0)
April 22, 2005
Kansougeikai Madness!
This week I have been to three (count them), yes three!, kansougeikais. Kansougeikai are the welcome/sayonara parties held annually for all the incoming/outgoing teachers/workers. They happen every April/May, at the beginning of the new Japanese school year. It is yet another excuse for Japanese people to get plastered to the ceiling.
Alcohol positively leaks from every corner of Japanese social life. まずはアルコールから始まる付き合いが多いです。If you are going to socialize in Japan, unless you are old, a party pooper, allergic to alcohol, a Mormon or positively strange, you are going to drink some alcohol. I actually don't mind except that I'm starting to get a little beer belly or beeruppara ビールッパラ in Japanese.
Kansougeikai basically is just a dinner party with lots of speeches from incoming and outgoing teachers who are at varying levels of inebriation. Generally the higher the level of inebriation, the longer the speech. At the first party, there was a young teacher (about my age) who kept on rambling on and on about how she was going to study this year and pass the teacher's exam and how this year she was given a lot of rrresponsibility but she learned a lot and blah blah blah. "XXはね、今年絶対勉強するがらね" At one point (ten minutes into the speech) this (also drunk) teacher starting yelling from the back "SOMEONE STOP HER! たれか止まれ〜！" There was also a drunk male PE dude who kept on running around hugging this other male teacher saying "I love you!" or "You're great!" After one party, there was a nijikai (second party) in a karaoke joint and teachers were dancing, clapping, cheering, singing along, drinking alcohol and putting on some hard core karaoke performances. I whipped out my kick a$$ Bon Jovi "You give love a bad name" and they crowd went nuts. Some dude kept on yelling "She's the Exorcist! エクサーシストだよね"
In this way I am gaining the REspect of my coworkers. Damn straight.
The second kansougeikai two nights later was much calmer and it would have been a fairly ho hum evening had there not been another kansougeikai next door with teachers I know in it. See, in my job, I not only go to two high schools and the center, I also visit a bunch of special needs schools. It just so happened that one of those schools was next door, so I dashed in and out between the two parties. Yeah, I'm a terrible party pooper, but the other kansougeikai had a guy dressed up in a homemade yellow pompom monster outfit, a ukulele band, hula dancers and more drunkenness. You can see my case is uncrackable.
The nijikai (second party) for this kansougekai was going out to eat cake. This gives you an idea about the average age of the teachers in this school. Actually I'm glad it was calm, because I had already blacked out for 15 hours after the first party and found myself mysteriously hanging upside down on a laundry pole in a Shinto temple in Tokyo with my hair permed.
Posted by Emarrific at 10:45 PM | Comments (0)
March 06, 2005
Back into the Swing of Partying
This weekend I spent Friday and Saturday night out partying and drinking. Now, voila, I am no longer terribly homesick. There must be something about drinking lots of sake, doing the chicken dance with a toilet seat cover with pale baby blue tropical floral print over my head, teaching the "crotch dance" to two random guys and then performing for the surrounding tables at the drinking establishment, eating tofu AND chicken salad (which someone commented was a terrible waste of tofu), and catching the last train which just makes me non-homesick. Or maybe it was copious red wine, nabe (communal hot pot), punching and being punched, wrestling, crude humor, Baby Secrets, and lots of loud Australians. In any case, I'm back to my usual non-thinking, happy self. Life is good.
Posted by Emarrific at 10:24 AM | Comments (2)
February 19, 2005
Shrimp Named City hosts Odakyu Night
I went to a city whose name is shrimp, but is very far inland. I drank lots of beer, blah blah. Most eventful of the night was karaoke. My favorite karaoke performances: Mai-- and In----'s sexy but smooth rendition of Madonna, P---'s deep-throated bass version of "Like a Virgin", the twin duo of French Canadia, and my own successful rendition of "You Give Love a Bad Name" by Bon Jovi. OK, it's a bit conceited to rave about my own performance. Yea.
Of particular note, one of our number, J---, saved a woman's life tonight. As far as I can ascertain, there as a woman vomiting and seizuring in the bathroom and J--- stepped in an gave her CPR and got an ambulance. Wow! What a great gal! That's quite brave. Understandably she was very emotional afterwards. Unfortunately I didn't really catch on until much later. I just thought she was having a bad day or regretting her decision not to recontract. I'm such a doof!
Posted by Emarrific at 01:41 AM | Comments (0)
February 04, 2005
Game Night or the Spanking of the Clay
Last night, instead of the usual movie night, me and my friends had a game night. It started with animal Karuta as we waited for the game supplier to arrive with Cranium. Karuta is a traditional Japanese game that involves listening to a phrase full of words starting with that hiragana (japanese letters) and finding the card with the corresponding picture and hiragana. It was pure edutainment... everyone breathlessly poised over the cards, waiting to hear the first hiragana letter of the phrases I was reading so that they could slap their hands down on the right card. Mistakes were rewarded with slaps from the person to the left. When we got to the last card, everyone sat upright with hand behind their head and as soon as I started reading, arms and hands descended at once producing a sort of biological inverse maypole.
The game supplier, N---, nototrious for being late, showed up 40 minutes late and was summarily pelted with dried beans when he arrived. You see, February 3rd is Setsubun in Japan. It is a day when Japanese people go outside of their houses or temples and pelt beans at someone wearing a oni (devil) mask while saying, "Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!" This roughly means, "Out with the devils! In with good fortune!" Although N--- was not wearing an oni mask, he was branded the devil for being late.
No less than three people showed up with dried beans.
Next, we moved onto Cranium. Cranium is quite fun, although I have to say that the questions were much easier than I had imagined. It holds not even a flame to Trivial Pursuit in terms of difficulty. In any case, let me try to explain the rules. You form teams as small or large as you wish, but in the end you are probably better off with larger teams. You'll see why in a minute. Each team gets a little pawn to put on the game board. The gameboard is pretty simple; it is a spiral which leads to a big purple brain in the center that has four spots around it. There are five differnet kinds of squares: red, yellow, green, blue and brain. The four colors are categories: red for trivia, yellow for word-related questions, green for play-acting/scherades and blue for artistic sort of questions. The main point is to get the other people on your team to guess the answers to the questions. If you land on a brain, you get to pcik which color/category of card you get to pick.
When it is your turn, you roll the dice which has all the different colors on it. Then you go to the corresponding square. You can never pass a purple brain without landing on it. Then the other team picks the card and reads it. Depending on the category, you could be doing scherades, spelling backwards, trying to sculpt something, answering trivia, unscrambling words, humming a tune... it's tons of fun. It also gets you to do all sorts of interesting things. The object of the game is to get to the end.
Memorable moments that I can remember: N--- spanking clay formed in the shape of a butt to get his team to guess "spank" (technically it was against the rules to do gestures, but oh well), me unscrambling a word that was supposed to be a powertool and coming up with "saw table" instead of "table saw" (WHATEVAH), S---- pulling her pants low to show "low rider", Al---- trying to show "hypertext" by jumping up and down to show "hyper" and pretending to read "text" on a computer and An----'s uncanny spelling abilities.
Good times, donuts and royal milk tea were had all around. Ah, life is good.
Posted by Emarrific at 10:19 AM | Comments (1)
January 26, 2005
Bowling and how it kicked my donkey!
Last night, I got my donkey whooped by some teachers at one of my visit schools. There were four of us, including one fairly serious amatuer bowler. He had his own ball, wrist protector, shoes... the whole get-up! He also had beefy arms, which I think kept him from feeling exhausted by the end of the night. Lucky! The other teachers were decent too, both managing to get close to or break 100.
After two rounds, I was exhausted, I hadn't even come close to reaching 100 points, and my ball had strayed into the gutter quite a few times. I think I got one spare. The one strike I almost managed to get was foiled by the trigger-happy lane sensors that disqualified me for going one microscopic molecule too far into the lane. Not that I'm bitter. Anyways, I've posted some pictures (including a picture of my sad sad score sheet) on the photo part of the site.
Anyway, the teachers were really cool and said they'd like to do it more in the future. Woo hoo! I've already started working out in the gym and doing long hikes in preparation. Heck, I might even stray into a bowling alley before the next visit. Well, wonders never cease...
Posted by Emarrific at 09:50 AM | Comments (0)
January 09, 2005
Karaoke Cinderella Style!
Six floors of woman heroine themed karaoke rooms that aren't smokey... what more could a woman ask for? I ask you!
I've discovered a most wonderful karaoke shrine in Shibuya, a rather large Shidax karaoke palace. There are five or six floors, each assigned a female "heroine" such as Cinderella, kaguya hime (moon princess) and so forth. Me and my friend, Sh--, got the Cinderella floor.
When we stepped out of the elevator, we were greeted by a whole theme floor filled with Cinderella interior decoration: wallpaper, dresses, sequined shoes, drapes... In our particular room, there was a glass case with a Cinderella shoe in it. The "dumb" room (I guess there are other rooms with better acoustics and interior decoration) was huge, with enough room to seat about 10 people.
And the air was clean! Wooppeee! My biggest reservation about going to a karaoke joint in Japan is knowing that I will leave with lungs and clothes suffused with smoke.
Unfortunately, it's about two hours from my house. If only I could find a similarly ideal karaoke place 30 minutes or less from my house. Sigh... If anyone happens to know of a karaoke place like this in Yokohama, I'm all ears and eyes.
Posted by Emarrific at 11:39 PM | Comments (0)
January 03, 2005
Bring in the New Year with... Partay-ing!
In the past three days, I got all my partying, clubbing, late-nighting, cigarette-smoke-inhaling and drinking done for last year and this year combined!
12/31: I went to a fairly chill (for a club) raggae night at a club in Tokyo. I went with some fellow English teachers and their friends; every single person in our group was the best! One girl was a dancing maniac, even getting on the stage at one point to egg on the crowd. Then there was the guy who didn't drink at all and still seemed to enjoy hanging out with us drunkies, which is really quite impressive. By the way, have you ever had "Forbidden Love"? Apparently one of my fellow English teachers has been asked this question by her students, with no further explanation after she gave an answer. I think the most memorable thing of all though, was joking around with the drunk chef who was cooking toshi-koshi soba (some kind of end-of-the-year soba) who took like 30 minutes to make a batch of soba. That's a long time, if you're wondering. I kept on asking, "Where is my friends' toshi-koshi soba?" and I think he got a kick out of it. He kept on calling me BEEPU BEEPU, which I finally figured out meant VIP... or Very Intensely (scary) Person. He he.
Anyway, I left the club around 3am and didn't get home until 5am. This is really quite unusual for an Emarrific-ster.
1/1: This day was supposed to be a relaxing day where I was to recover from my new year's eve revelry BUT it was not to be. My co-worker, A--, had a 20 person party at his huge but slightly dilapidated house featuring lots of snacks, alcohol and GYOZA! This is A--'s second stuff-your-face-with-gyoza party. This time it was chicken gyoza and vegie gyozas; I helped make the filling, wrapped the gyoza and cooked them up with a cool new friend who has dubbed herself as a potato queen. Between stuffing huge amounts of not so healthy snacks into my gullet, I downed copious amount of sake. As A--'s party neared it's end, I was doing D--'s famous crotch dance (some of you know it's origins) and was participating in jelly-belly and dried blueberry shooting wars. Uh, sorry A--...
Afterwards, in my fairly buzzed state, I decided to go to THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE to sing karaoke until 3am with two expert karaoke singers. The karaoke selection was sad, so we were forced to sing "Take me Home, Country Roads", "Luka" and Spice Girls. Ah, gotta love alcohol!
1/2: This day was really not slated to be an "alcohol" day since we were visiting my mom's restaurant friends to eat osechi ryori (traditional Japanese new year's food)... but silly me, I forgot that they regularly imbibe more wine, champagne, beer and sake than most of my younger friends COMBINED. OK, that may be a bit of hyperbole... Anyways, when presented with expensive and delicious Don Perignon, red wine and sake, it was hard to resist. However, in my sleep deprived, karaoke-exhausted state, the alochol quickly took action and reduced me to a sleepy state. However, before this happened, I got to enjoy a most wonderous selection of osechi that came from not one but TWO fancy restaurants. Especially delicious was the kazu no ko (not exactly sure what it is, but I think it is a bunch of super crunchy fish eggs clumped together), ozouni (clear broth soup with mochi and chicken... this one was unusual because it has daikon), and the sweet egg squares. Yum!
Afterwards, we snuck off to Yokohama to try to score a nice fuku-bukuro (hodge-podge bag full of unknown things) at a department store, but couldn't find on that seemed really promising. It is a yearly tradition that stores put together this bag of goodies ranging in price from 2000 yen to 20000 yen or more (20 USD to 200 USD+). They have bags full of unknown stuffed animals, stationary, clothes, shoes, miscellaneous, etc. It's kind of fun, even though you risk getting a bunch of crap you don't want and have to palm off as gifts to other people. I WANT ONE! I will get one today!
Then, last night, I decided, stupidly, to stay up late, in my freezing cold room, to finish Eragon, a children's fantasy novel that I have been glued to for the last few days. It was written when the author was 15! Wow! Anyway, I gave up around 2:30am.
New Year's Resolution: Don't stay up late, don't eat too much, don't drink too much alcohol, don't inhale lots of cigarettes, don't spend too much money and don't read in bed. Do go outside a lot to exercise and explore, do eat healthy and in moderation, and do study lots of things about teaching English and materials in Japanese. He he. Basically, don't do as I did the first couple days of the new year. I guess we'll find out soon whether this resolution is worth it's space on the web. :D
Posted by Emarrific at 10:10 AM | Comments (2)