hot fun in the summertime

absolutely beautiful in portland these days. spent a lazy afternoon playin ladder golf in the park and catchin up with buds. i think i got some sort of sunburn. it occurs to me that this town got weirder since i left, and for a moment it just didn't feel like i belonged. supposed to hit the 90s this week, which as far as i'm concerned is totally out of the blue. should be pretty exciting!

whatever you do, don't comment on this post.

western folk

i'm pretty scared. this large white lady ran into my back with her luggage cart when i stopped to go through the ticket turn-style, no apology or anything. what's weird is that i automatically apologized in japanese. this other lady in line for checking in had three kids that were just running all over the place and screaming.

i'm beginning to feel incredibly intimidated, and i'm still in narita airport. i've been thinking a lot about how to conduct simple transactions back in america, and i'm a little foggy on a most of the details. for instance, i don't remember if i have to tell everyone that i don't need a bag, or if that's even an acceptable statement there. how would i say that? i got so used to saying it in japanese before i even reached the counter, maybe i just didn't notice when i'd say it in the states. i have this wierd feeling that i'll try to interact with people when i get there, and instead just quiver and pee my pants.

young, attractive british adventurer seeks soul/first mate

check this dude out:

http://www.odemagazine.com/doc/63/recycled-catamaran/

building a cat out of plastic bottles and sailing across the pacific, which i think is pretty sweet. stories like this fortify my belief that the world is educating itself on the folly of grotesque consumption patterns. if i wasn't already living the dream, i'd head to san fran and help a brotha out.

in extremely related news (for those out of the loop), anne is planning to produce no waste during the month of july. yet another brilliant source of inspiration for the rest of us.

net fishin' ol' okie

we went to okayama with the english speaking society from anne's university on saturday. the purpose of the trip was fishing followed by barbecue. i heard we were fishing with nets, which i've never really done. i was all thinking like traditional japanese fisherman style, tossing hand nets into the gentle breeze and hoping to land a fish or two to sustain daily hunger. my imagination of the experience was only slightly off the mark.

we got to the beach and split up into two teams. there were some fishermen there with a boat and a huge friggin' net, probably 200 meters long or so. on either end of said net was a 2" diameter rope, likened to those popular in the ol' war tug. the boat dropped one end of the net on the sand and laid the rest in a sweeping semi-circle out into the sea. after the other end was laid about 1000' feet down the beach, the teams went to work hauling in everything unlucky enough to be alive in the area. i do mean everything. sting rays, cephalopods, and 4" fish were among the spoils. although not quite as traditional an experience as i pictured, it was quite fun.

one of the larger hauls

team 1 fishing.

big mountain

'sup y'all's'uns.

last weekend we took a cruise out to dai sen (big mountain). this is a volcano on the west coast of japan, damn nigh the inland sea. known as "ol' dicey" to the locals, it surely was a beautiful sight. rippin through the middle of japan i noticed some serious countryside for the first time. really nice! nothing but conifer covered mountains and real small farming villages (and the highway we were on). turns out that cedar and pine don't cover the land naturally, the timber industry planted the whole lot. the dice master is a pretty pop ski resort. we even passed a few chain up areas.

teaching kids is going a lot better, mostly due to two things. 1) i have fewer classes, and 2) i've actually been preparing ahead of time. i'm sure all you teachers out there know the feeling of having 35 minutes left in class and no more activities. to avoid that nasty action, anne says 'tis best to bring way more stuff to do than you have time for. been working quite well. i've also noticed that when i stand in front of kids with flash cards, they prefer to run around the room and smack each other in the head. when i show a video of some other chump with flashcards on my computer, it's attentions galore! technological advancements baby. whoo!

so, ummm, let's see....... how's some photes?

ye ole montana cafe. it's kind of like a home away from home, 'cept they're a bit to keen on showcasing desserts rather than taxidermic prowess. more dead animals, less frosted pastries, that's what lil' mikey always says.

it really is quite big, no?

me n' anne, about to kick the ass of one of the better lunches i've experienced.

the sole water crane.
it is up high in a tree.
when will it eat fish?

i (foreground) gotta tell ya, i just loved daisen (background)!

shotty video of this really, really angry japanese man perched on top of a parked van armed with quite possibly the loudest PA system ever. alls i could understand were words like "japan", "japanese", "america", and "american". kept distance, and later confirmed that he was probably a member of some extremist anti-states political party. you can see him in the very bottom center of the video. i stood across the street and shot from the hip, so as not to cause any trouble.

sometimes my whole life feels like some surreal joke, and i'm like "what the fuck is going on here? i really suck."

Dr. Egon Spengler and the J-Beej

adolescent males worldwide piss people off all the time. it's just sort of what they're born to do. no different here, except it's much harder to take any of them seriously. while japan has many faces, many styles, today i'd like to discuss two of those adopted by this precarious demographic (or at least how i've stereotyped them).

many of young men here resemble what in america would sometimes mistaken for an extremely intelligent, oddly badass ghost expert. they are generally japanese enough to be polite to strangers and dorky enough to be friendly to foreigners. i like these types of dudes. neither intrusive nor intimidating.


another (and probably the most popular) style involves extending, dying, and teasing the hair, whilst shaving off the brows and revving the vespa as loud as possible all the time. most of these dudes look like chicks (at least from behind) and are considered serious hard asses. it's really quite funny, and maybe even less intimidating than the former. being in osaka is like being on MTV circa 1986.

i had a brief encounter last weekend when i accidentally kicked an atomic warhead into the middle of a trio of browless jovies sitting on the ground. "sorry" i said. douche bags waited until i was about 10 feet away from them before throwing at me.

this blog post is going nowhere. i really just wanted to photoshop jbj's brows off. here're some photes!!

went hiking last weekend. came across this wierd ampitheatre upon emerging from the woodsies.

extremely clear that day. from the map in the foreground, you can infer that the range of visibility is 20+ km.

looking north on suma beach, supposedly the str8 up hot shit in the sumatime. get it?

options. useful when you only want a couple small sips.