Last weekend I attended the Coming of Age Ceremony for my girlfriend. This takes place just after the new year and everyone who turned 20 in the last year attends. I say this first because many an uncomfortable gaze has been cast my way when I told people my girlfriend was coming of age "How old is she again?" They guys mostly wear suits but many chose to wear totally bad ass hakama, traditional Japanese clothing. The girls all wear AAAAAWESOME winter kimonos and all have some kind of fur drape on their shoulders. The seijin-sha (graduates? its a hard word to translate) or people who are coming of age, go to friends and family's houses and get money, a practice that I wish we did in America. New Year's money AND Seijin (kin? gin? Im just guessing at this point) adds up to quite I bit I hear. Anyway, they are divided by where they went to Jr High School so there is a great deal of kyaaaaa-ing that goes on when long lost friends are reunited. For such an event, the ceremony was pretty short. The Mayor spoke, along with some principals, then they read the names of all the seijin-sha.

Then came the BIG surprise, my lady was called up on stage and given an award for...SOMETHING! I couldnt understand but out of these several hundred seijin-sha, she got picked for something <3. Turns out that it was for her student teaching in the area. I had to suppress the urge to cheer.

I was getting nervous because I was supposed to meet her parents and family afterwards. And even more nervous because while they certainly knew who I was, I had no idea what they looked like. For all I knew, I could be sitting right next to them! As it turns out, only her mom was there and it was hardly the formal meeting I had expected. "Oh and this is my mother." Yikes. She dropped a standard "Thank you for taking care of my daughter (schwa?)" and then it was over. Barely got my name out before they both took off. All in all, a really cool experience and hey, beautiful girls in kimonos is always a plus!



I need a freaking scanner, my kids did fill in the blank comics with PvP and it is HILARIOUS! I could just recreate the dialogs with Paint or something, but half of the charm is their writing and illogical sentence and line breaks. As soon as I find one, Im sending these to Kurtz as well as Questionable Content. Pintsize and Winslow talking about what sports they play is gold.
If Eric turns out to be a better writer than me, Im gonna be very disappointed in myself. >: (

http://hapsandhappenstance.blogspot.com/

THREE DAYS!

Im out of here in Three Days, I am so checked out.

Last year I went to Thailand, a fact that didnt really dawn on me until I was in line at customs. This year, Ive been planning AND knowing what Im going home to (extract of awesome) for months. It was a feat of super that I was able to act all genki at my Christmas lesson. Rather than being something that Im looking forward to, they are only serving to annoy me and something I could have been enjoying RIGHT NOW if I had just taken an earlier flight. I did it to SAVE VACATION days but thats crap. Ill take MAYBE one more trip this school year and then whittle my days away on retarded days off in summer.

I want a damn pumpkin pie. I want my mommy to TEACH ME how to make a pumpkin pie and then proceed to eat it ALL BY MYSELF!

Three more days. Get ready America, Ima commin' home!  

Merry almost Christmas!

So the BIG Christmas date (a week early due to expatriate status) was last night and it was magical.
First I picked her up at her dorm, well I had to wait outside because there is a slew of cameras and a battalion  of nuns making sure that the only men who enter the building are student family members (prior blood screening required). She was led out to the car by a half dozen friends who were there to see her off. As a totally romantic gesture, I brought a bouquet of roses. Windows were broken by the sonic wave of the troop's reaction. Apparently, it was her first time to get flowers from a boy, <3


So we went to Huis Ten Bosch (read: House ten bosh), an old recreation of a Dutch city. But not like a Bavarian village kind of recreation. Most of the larger structures are copies of the outside of famous buildings in Amsterdam...and Rotterdam...and many more. Remco, the Dutch CIR in Hirado, probably felt that he was looking at a patchwork horror of Holland. Nevertheless, the place was beautiful at night and every single structure was draped with lights. The clocktower was amazing with several hundred tiny strobe lights. The stock Christmas music that flowed out of every building, usually a source of great annoyance by November 25th, was making me literally sing and dance on the cobblestone streets.

"That's embarassed." she said
"Me? (misunderstanding) No way baby! Im fine!"
"I know. I meant me."

We were trying to find a western style place to have a Christmas dinner but as we were looking, we realized that the fireworks were about to start. So we darted across the plater of Dutch sample tray that is Huis Ten Bosch and got there just in time to see a great fireworks show. We never did find a place to eat, everything closed after the fireworks were over. So we just grabbed some wine (oh dear) and some REAL cheese (oh dear oh dear) and some other snacky things to have at a romantic location yet to be determined.

We drove around for an HOUR trying to find a spot her friend had suggested. I kept getting vague directions from her and when I asked to see the email she got, the specifications were "Between the big road and the mountain." :P We ended up going to another lookout point and there out big mistake was uncovered. We had no bottle opener. A nice bottle of wine, and no way to get through the cork. Well, that will be our new years wine I guess.

I drove her home and walked her up to the door. I told her I probably wouldnt see her until the new year and all holiday salutations were exchanged. And as I kissed her good night...I burped in her mouth. I had, for real, one of those internal monologues that you see in movies when something really bad happens. How is she gonna take it? Blah blah blah. ANYWAY, she just laughed and I begged for forgiveness, informing her that no dating court wouldnt find this as grounds for a breakup or just friends or somesuch. She decided not to press charges and I got off scott free.

In spite of all sarcasm and setbacks, it was one of the best dates of my life.

The ending could have gone better :(  

Well it seems I am the victim of massive misinformation again. I know that there is a little switcher-roo in Japan in that you spend Christmas with your SO and New Years with the family. However just tonight I heard that there is a more...libertine aspect to the holiday. It's like some crazy hook up holiday if you dont have someone, you go out, hook up FAST, and go to a love hotel and hump like bunnies. It turns out that KFC has a special holiday pack ready to go to the hotel with you.

So if you got someone, awesome, if you dont, you get one fast...

And Im leaving the country for Christmas.

;_; She wouldnt eat KFC with someone else would she?

If you ask me straight up, I will answer with resounding and rising voice, that I love Japan.  I love living here. I love the language's totally radical grammar. I love how easy it is to speak and how impossible it is to read. I love the over-affectionate guys who need only a high five to make you their best friend ever. I love the women and am the first to admit to having a very strong preference for Japanese girls. I love the kids insane energy and desire to both learn English and teach me Japanese. I really love Japan.

My friend, loves his wife. He cried at their wedding, not hard, but an amazing display of affection and love from someone like him. A real marvel for someone like me who's come to have a rather skeptical view of love and marriage. They have their problems of course. They disagree on things, argue, hell they have all kinds of little spats over seemingly trite things. This is normal. If they didnt, they'd be that kind of couple that grosses out all but the most muse-touched romantics.

You see where Im going with this. Japan has problems. And Im talking more than just the wacky porn that comes out of the crazy otaku districts in Tokyo. It's not perfect,  unless you are the most naive dragonball fan on earth, you probably know this, either actually or from your knowledge of the world. Nothing is perfect, Japan is no exception. This isnt a "Fuck Japan" blog, nor is it a "omg come here now!" blog. My emotional state, whether actually or just in comparison to the stalwart Japanese, fluctuates rapidly and severely. Ill probably come off as bi polar or something. This is an attempt to represent my life and my mood in Japan.

A major reason Im starting this blog is because since Ive gotten to Japan, very frightening steps have been taken by an increasingly conservative government to make it even harder for gaijin to live and function in Japan. Whether this is the goal or not is not as important as the simple fact that that is what it is doing with little reason or provocation.  That being said, this isn't just a political blog. I have very little knowledge of the Japanese political system (just found out today who the current PM is).

I think the reason I get so angry at these issues is because I love Japan so much. You'll probably hear me cuss out Japan, when I hope it is apparent that Im not blaming every person in the country for what is usually the actions of a small political elite.

I hope you enjoy the ride, as long as it lasts.



A small glimpse into the very full brain of a very small man in a very big world.

(Total aside: Im so not kidding when I say that being in Japan screws with your English. My spelling is terrible and my grammar worse so please be kind. I just pray Ill know enough Japanese by the time I forget all my English.)