I'm Baaaaack

Like these Japanese mythical creatures, I can never die...



First, thank you all for your somewhat enigmatic yet ultimately encouraging messages.

Yeah, it's been a while. Although I am picky about having only Japanese-related stuff on here, I guess I should update you on why I've been away and what's been going on.

What was my main job suddenly stopped a few months ago (no, it wasn't Nova), so I had absolutely no money coming in. It was very rough for a while. Luckily, some good friends cheered me up and helped me get adjusted to life in Kyoto. Thank you Lisa, (another) Lisa, Hiro & Machiko, and Eiko. You can really find out who your true friends are in such times.

Following that, my hard drive broke. Again. As you may recall, I just had a faulty drive replaced at the Apple Store in Osaka last year, so it was a brand new drive! The "geniuses" there replaced my old one with a drive known to fail. Thanks Apple! I love using OS X but, especially after the three (!) motherboard failures of my iBook and problems a friend had with his iMac (Hi Scott!), I can (and will) never again recommend Mac hardware. Though I had purchased a large back up external and saved pretty much everything, all my recent stuff was lost. Including a full blog post I had just written the night before. Yes. I just didn't have the will to do it all again, you know? It also had some recent self-created teaching materials on it, so that was quite frustrating as well. I won't bother to go to Apple to get them to "fix" it again, I'll just buy a new one myself. UPDATE: done. I bought a 320 Gig and put it in (despite the crack sales team telling me it was impossible. It's somehow reassuring that electronics staff everywhere have no idea what they're talking about). It's all good.

I had a house party.I invited about 45 people and about 30-35 came. Pretty crowded, but a lot of fun. A lot of people seemed confused by the concept of just a "house party" and so brought home-cooked dishes, even though I told 'em it wasn't necessary. Also, the thing ended at 11p.m. on a Saturday night! My goal was for people to mingle like a North American party, but I'm not sure if that really happened. Folks had fun, though.

I grew a beard! I've never done that before. Although one boss (at a conversation school) told me it looked cool ("like Brad Pitt"), a businessman I was teaching business English to at a large company was told me "It is better to remove it. Such a thing is rude in Japan". So I did.

I also changed my hairstyle from George Clooney forward to James Bond slicked back.

I went on a lot of dates. I even went to a gokon (a kind of mixer for Japanese university students) in Osaka. Met a lot of cool people, some okay people, and a few outright nutters.

I studied Japanese, especially Kansai ben. I am taking a class, although it's only once a week and I often am busy.

Which reminds me...I learned two songs in Japanese. Shimanchu nu Takara by Begin and Life Goes On by Dragon Ash. I downloaded the lyrics, learned the kanji, then made sheet music. I played the songs on guitar at home, then sang them at karaoke. Next, I'd like to learn a Chinese song. UPDATE: Did it. I sang Tian Mi Mi by Teresa Teng at a karaoke party for one of my jobs.

I translated another menu into English. Last time was a yakitori (grilled chicken) shop, this time was a soba/udon shop. It's very interesting to know all these food-related kanji/words. There may be many foreigners whose Japanese is much better than mine, but they might not know negi banban or wariko soba!

Oh, I take a cooking class once a month. Traditional Japanese food, taught in Japanese and English to foreigners and Japanese. Pretty cool. A friend taught me how to make katsudon (deep-fried pork cutlet on rice with onions, egg, and broth), so I went nuts, deep-frying everything for a while there.

I met my final roommate, a guy from Fukuoka. He's the sixth, and best of all the roommates so far. The last guy from Italy, was the absolute worst - noisy (the walls here are as thin as Ally McBeal, so you can literally hear a pin drop), dirty, rude, etc., so it was a relief to meet Aki.

However, I'm moving to a single apartment. Aki wants to hang together in a new place, but he has some strange idea about opening up a third room to travelers and running some kind of hostel (?!). No thanks. UPDATE: Moved. The new place is pretty cool: tatami floors and all. However, there's no internet (not even a phone line!) and they told me to put fibre optic (which they're pushing recently here) will take a month - they might even have to put up a special telephone pole for me! I could get ADSL, but it's half the speed and costs more, so I'm goin' for the private pole (wait, that didn't sound right...).



When I was checking the place out for the first time with one boss (very cool lady - she found and paid for the agency without me asking, acted as my guarantor without me asking, and even helped me move!), I saw the balcony has a kind of corrugated metal blocking the view (though why they block views here with dirty rusty ugly metal no-one can explain). I asked if they could remove it and the real-estate guy of course sucked his teeth, "it's a little difficult..." (which means "no"). So, I joked, "Well, at least I can walk around naked and no-one can see!". My boss made this just-ate-a-lemon face and said, "Such a thing no-one wishes to see". Ah, I guess you had to be there.

From friends and sayonara sales, I got some good stuff: fridge 3000 yen (about 30 bux), microwave (1000 yen), washing machine (free - I'm four floors up and there's no elevator, so moving the washing machine was an experience), gas stove (free), cool table (3000 yen) and chair (1000), small table from the new IKEA in Osaka which was a nightmare to carry from the station to home on by bike (1500), small stylish lamp (200), tons of pots and pans (500), etc. I'm having a nameplate made for the door. It's a small thing, but it feels like home now.

I went to some interesting stores. This place sells only chopsticks, this place only umbrellas, and this place only bamboo goods.

I'm thinking of having another party, this time a beach party at Omi-Maiko (in Shiga). Swimming, BBQ, drinking, etc. If enough people are interested, it's on!

I watched a hell of a lot of movies. Actually, I've started reviewing some Japan-related / Japanese movies on IMDB. Please see the list below for most of the movies I can remember seeing.


Movies I have seen recently, arranged by quality:


Great

Chop Shop
In Bruges
Lars and the Real Girl
The Orphanage
No Country for Old Men
The Bourne Ultimatum
Atonement
In the Valley of Elah
Match Point


Good

Cassandra's Dream
Batman - The Dark Knight
Felon
Redbelt
Death at a Funeral
Disturbia
The Onion Movie
Iron Man
Superbad
San-chome No Yuhi
Layer Cake
City of God
City of Men
The Simpsons Movie
Secrets and Lies
The Last King of Scotland
August Rush
Son of Rambow

Okay

The Fourth Man
Tropic Thunder
Hancock
Wanted
Get Smart
Be Kind Rewind
The Brave One
21
Eastern Promises
The Bank Job
Vantage Point
The Bank Job
Definitely Maybe
The Incredible Hulk
Street Kings
1114The Bucket List
The Forbidden Kingdom
Transformers
Rambo
The Mist
YPF
3:10 to Yuma
The Machinist
Live Free or Die Hard
National Treasure Book of Secrets
Cloverfield
American Gangster
I am Legend
Diary of the Dead
Semi-Pro
Sweeney Todd - the Demon Barber of Fleet Street
300
Juno
There Will Be Blood
The Spiderwick Chronicles
Wall-E
88 Minutes
Indina Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Gone Baby Gone
Doomsday
The Great Debaters
We Own the Night
Hitman
Run Fat Boy Run
Dan In Real Life
Beowulf
Stardust
30 Days of Night
Michael Clayton
Cleaner
Zodiac
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
Anamorph
Mr Brooks
Fracture
Breach
Flawless
Shooter
Sunshine
28 Weeks Later
Mr. Bean's Holiday
Hot Fuzz
Little Miss Sunshine
Monkey King
Super High Me
The Air I Breathe
Control
Scoop
Across the Universe
I'm Not There
Walk the Line
Children of Men
Inside Man
Chaos Theory
Charlie Wilson's War

Bad

Ghost Rider
Jumper
Fantastic Four Rise of the Silver Surfer
An American Crime
Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay
Charlie Bartlett
Death Proof / Planet of Terror
The Invasion
Big Dreams, Little Tokyo

Terrible

Brick
The Savages
Into the Wild
The Happening

Next post is on English teaching - a big subject - so keep your eyes peeled.