friday, 04.30: elementary school nomikai
after vball practice, caught the train to kita narashino and met up with my elementary school teachers @ shoya. was bombarded instantly with food and drinks. this was a great opportunity for me to talk and get to know the teachers. after dinner, we headed to karaoke. i think i'm gonna enjoy these schools.
the thing i noticed was how the younger teachers (25 & under) stayed calm and collected while the older teachers went crazy! i was shocked by how some of the teachers thought the night was to their time to practice their english. it was funny. all in all, everyone had a good time, includin' myself.
saturday, 05.01: vball practice, pick up, party
had vball practice in da mornin'. was feelin' a little under the weather, so toita sensei made the girls make and bring us coffee. I finally got to play with toita sensei. all i gotta say is wow! we scrimmaged against the 1st squad and actually won the 3rd game. as always, when i was leavin', the girls all lined up. when they say
arigato gozaimasu (thank you), then i can leave. but when they say
onegai shimasu (in this situaion: "please give us advice"), so i tell them the usual stuff. i was shocked to see their cool down exercises. first of all, the 9th graders have to walk on their hands (by themselves) across the gym, while the 8th graders partner up and the 7th graders do handstand pushups against the wall. then they have to do about 50 normal (not the fake girly ones) pushups but wait...with their fingers!!! so when i finished my cool down and was leavin', toita sensei had a girl bring me a sports drink. i love it here.
came home and had to take care of some last minute stuff before headin' out to the airport. found out that their flight came in early and luckily bsato got there early to wait for them. since khattab and arturo's flight came in a little bit later, we decided to wait and have a few beers. when they came in, we chilled for a bit before headin' out. we went home, dropped off the luggage and then went to eat some yakiniku near my house. afterwards, rested a bit @ home before headin' out to shibuya to meet up with some friends. the word from the other guys was that they weren't plannin' on comin out, but @ around 1230ish, i get a call from b that they are now comin' out. i was like whoah, ya'll sounded hella dead earlier, where did this second wind come from? they came through to doma doma and we were hangin' out there for a while. the thing that got me was that they were out of tantakatan!?! wtf!?
after a while, we all then headed out to nutz, some hip hop club in shibuya. it was the first club that i got patted down at. all the other clubs just let you walk right in. i also had to check in my camera. the place was packed! way too many peeps there. the music...it was aite. the girls...lots of honeys. some reason tequila came into the picture and then it gets blurry. we went to go eat ramen afterwards and then headed home.
sunday; 05.02: shuko's bday
slept in pretty late. ben and i went to the grocery store cuz i needed some eggs and onions for breakfast. i made my specialty, corn beef hash/rice/eggs. tonite was one of b's friend's friend's bday parties in shibuya. we had to meet there @ hachiko @ 1830. we were rollin' deep: b, q, tab, art, ken, lisa, tony, ben, cal, me, masa, yosuke, nori, ayuko & her b/f, noriko and shuko. we went to this one crazy restaurant called christon. think last supper meets blade. we were all trippin' out that vampires are gonna come out and get us when we're done eatin'. the food itself was pretty good. we ended up movin' to our own area early in the meal. we had this loft all to ourselves. there was so much food and drink. there was
always a pitcher of beer. we probably killed at least 15 or so pitchers.
we then headed to this one club called ruido k2. a nice, quaint little place. when we got there, there was this one girl spinnin'. she was playin' the jams. later on that night, tab asked me to help translate for him to this girl. it wasn't until after i talked to her that i realized it was the dj!? the highlight of the night was that they played '93 to infinity!?! omg!!! yet again, somebody brought up the idea of tequila shots, maybe it was tony, cuz he was sayin' that he needed a pick me up. ken was debatin' whether or not to take the last train. but he did get a second wind @ the club. somehow my hat got passed around to everyone....
so we all danced and had a good time. don't really remember goin' to the second club. but we did get home, sure it took longer than expected, but we got home.
monday; 05.03: rest
just chilled pretty much all day. kinda needed a day off after 2 all nighters. had dinner with mikie and junko @ coco's. saw fujimaki kun, one of my old students there with his family. for some reason, everyone thinks the guys were younger than me. mikie had a question with her english homework. man, the stuff she's studyin' isn't your basic english. she's tryin' to be a technical translator now so the stuff she had a question on was about screen resolutions, 16, 24 bit color, refresh rate, etc. tony tried to explain to her but he got stuck on this one part. not sure why, cuz he is a cis major. anyhow...after eatin' and chattin', we went to yakuendai park to just walk around.
tuesday; 05.04: yokohama, logos
chilled in the day...kinda forget what we did. @ night, headed to yokohama and met up with b, tab, ken & q. also met some of b's friends: yurie, rumi and marian.
we went out to eat at this one place. descent food but they had karaoke. after some drinks, we were goin' old school and some of dem songs. can't believe i heard shower me with your love. marian did a great brittney impersonation as well as an utada hikaru song. tony even busted out some backstreet boys. later, q and tab got on the mic for some freestyle which was dope.
after all the crazy singin', our time was up, so we had to get goin' to the club. we went to a club called logos. descent venue but way too crowded. what was worse was that the dj's didn't have enough records or something cuz i heard at least 8 songs repeated more than 4-5 times, wtf!?! also, once i started to feel a track, they would switch it up. another one of their friends came thru later, a girl named sumiko, who i could barely see cuz it was so dark and she had a hat on. it wasn't until we left that i got to see her. and q was right, she was foine! we all were dead tired and all just kicked on da train. yurie was pretty drunk and was tryin' to get all belligerent on me. all i was askin' if she knew how to get home. since rumi was statyin' with yurie that night, we were tryin' to figure the best way, but bein' the most drunk out of all us, yurie was not bein' very cooperative.
note to tony, ben, cal: i now know how ya'll feel when i'm over and we're tryin' to get home from tokyo in the mornin' but next time ya'll come out, you guys can get home yourselves.
anyhow, we finally figured everything out. got home and crashed out.
wednesday; 05.04: yu's performance
slept in. went to shibuya to meet up with yu, shuko and her 2 friends. headed to doma doma. the guys tried horse sashimi for the first time. yu had to bounce early cuz he had to get ready for his performance. hide came thru later as well as b, q and tab. ai impressed me with her drinkin'....sho chu...on da rocks! 3 bottles of tantakatan were consumed! (early warnin' sign of what happens to me when we drink that much tantakatan)
headed to ruido k2. the same club where we went for shuko's bday. met up with yu's friends there.
yu rocked the crushed mic shirt!
tequila shots = over
good night...
thursday; 05.05: chill
slept in. guys needed money, called up my senpai and found out there's a citibank atm in makuhari. then we headed over to ikko for some food. mama hooked up the grub: kara age, saba, nama yasai and this one corn and egg dish. natchan came thru and kita was goin' crazy. but that's a whole 'nother story. headed to daily yamazaki and paid for my plane ticket to hawaii, woot!
friday; 05.06: back to school, q's event: first fridays
headed back to school for the first time in a week. kinda missed da kids. it was hella hot. sweatin' like crazy. after a grubbin' school lunch, went to the gym and watched spiderman with the 9th graders. they were watchin' it because they're headin' to kyoto/osaka/nara in 2 weeks for their school trip and they're goin' to go to universal studios: japan.
miura sensei came into the gym cuz he had a message for me. i find out that i have to go to city hall on monday @ 1300. something bout the principal from moreau hs is here. supposed to accompany him on monday and tuesday. not sure what that means...
played vball for a while. since toita sensei was in a meetin', i had to help the team out. i tried to bounce before they could all surround me but it didn't work. they cut me off, surrounded me and asked for advice. i asked them how they did in the kanagawa tournament. they ended up gettin' 6th place. good job.
the guys headed to akihabara while i was at school and got some pretty dope toys. they made it back. i'm so proud of them.
we all got ready and headed out to roppongi for q's event. it's a networkin' social that starts @ 1900. it's happy hour from 1900 to 2200, so all drinks are 500 yen. after 2200, the cover goes up as well as the drinks. we waited for mike @ the station and then headed to mos burger to get a quick bite to eat cuz i didn't eat dinner. got a call from shuko, she was already there and said that she can only stay til like 2330ish.
when we got there, we saw q @ the door and inside we saw: ken, nori, maru, shuko and noriko. later came b, tab and art. art just got back from osaka/kyoto. they didn't even say hi to us when they came in. they went straight for the bar. this club was kinda interestin' cuz the crowd was something i would see back home, not in japan. it was mostly black, not african blacks, but back home blacks. b came in lookin' like a yakuza. his hair slicked back, suit...the whole 9. for some reason, we all got henney on da rocks. pretty good since i've never had it on da rocks before.
marian came with her friends and their friends from toronto who were visitin'. we were pretty deep up in da club. shuko's friends ended up comin' thru: fumie, junko and ...i forget the other girl's name. also, shuko tells me that she's gonna stay til 0100, so i made her take a tequila shot with all her friends.
i felt hella bad for ken cuz he missed his last train. it sucks when you have the mindset that you're gonna take the last train and to change plans like that really sucks. believe me, i know from experience. for these all nighters, ya gotta mentally prepare yourself.
a little bit later, cal and i go outside for some air. we head to the convenience store for some drinks and food. we ended up gettin' some of this fried chicken that they heated up for us and cal also got an onigiri. he be lovin' those things!
anyhow, we all had a great time. dancin', drinkin'. q even showed this one kat how to do this one move. him and his buddy even started to step when daylight came out.
some of us decided to hit up tsukiji. the world's larget fish market. we checked out some fish and then headed to a sushi place. we got this pretty fat plate that everyone shared. i then told cal about my favorite sushi...
dai toro aburi which is the fatty tuna, but not the one most of ya'll had. it wasn't even the medium fatty tuna. this was the
dai (big) mama jama and it was ever so slightly seared for a second. the sushi chef at sushi sei taught me that that is the best way to have
dai toro. i think cal is forever tainted to eat sushi back home now. came home and crashed out.
saturday; 05.07: design festival, asakusa, shibuya, ageha
was supposed to go the design festival but everyone was really tired. we instead headed to asakusa and met up with ikko. we walked around a bit and then decided to go to shibuya for dinner. it was nice to catch up with ikko. found out that she was in shibuya the night before, partyin' with her old co-workers. we went to watami and there were these young guys, pretty drunk, really loud, playin' these weird games and chantin' all sorts of weird stuff. quite amusin'. we weren't plannin' on goin' out, but b and marian persuaded us to hit up this one club. somehow everyone got a second wind and we then headed out.
the club we went to was called ageha. it was in shin kiba (a lot closer than shibuya or roppongi). it was probably the biggest club that i've been to in japan and maybe ever. the cover was 4000 yen!?!? wtf! we got inside and there was a huge bar. there was a hip hop room, a trance/house room, an outdoor patio that played reggae, a chill out room and a big 'ol area filled with roach coaches. we met up with a lot of marian's friends there.
the hip hop room was way too stuffy, the trance room was pretty crazy. no smokin' or drinkin' in that room for some reason....probably to control all the stoners. so we headed to the reggae area. chilled there for most of the night. cal and i asked for lc's (liquid cocaines for you alcohol challenged) but the bartender didn't know how to make it, so....we decided to teach him. though they only had jager, we asked for a peppermint liquor. no 151, so i told him to put in the strongest stuff they got. when i asked to see the bottle, it was some stuff from poland....192 proof!!! omg!!! it wasn't bad, considerin' the circumstances we were in. after the first time, the bartender told us that he'll remember how to make that drink. not sure why the heck cal and i did 2 of those. kinda funny when we went up after the second one, he said "rikuwid kokane?" and we were like "nooooo....gin tonic"
we started to get hungry, so we went outside to get some food. we had these gyros, though we asked for lamb, for some reason we got beef. it was grubbin', especially with the hot sauce. that was a big hit with everybody. we also got some garlic fries too.
highlights of the night:
- cal passed out near the dart board
- marian breakin' her glass outside (i wondered why everyone outside had plastic cups)
- tab sayin' he had my back in the hip hop room but when i looked, he was nowhere to be seen. if you're interested in the full story, hit me up. i'll break it down to ya, just don't have the time to write it all down here. all i gotta say was that girl was dope!!!
- marian rippin' her skirt (there sure are a lot of highlights with marian...could it be that she was the most drunk out of all of us??? hmmm.....)
- cal droolin' on ai-chan's lap
sunday; 05.08: last day, feast @ ikko, yoyogi
woke up and chilled. got some stuff @ jason, then bought some korokke for the homeys. chilled at home for a bit, then headed to ikko. mama hooked up the grub and mori san got us a fat plate of sushi. mama made her famous karaage, oshinko, kumamoto miso cucumbers, natto fried rice onigiri and some fried stuff i can't remember the name too. some people got on the mic. jomi, yuasa sensei, ozaki, ni chan, mori and kohiyama were there too. afterwards, we headed out to yoyogi for dinner. met up with: b, tab, art and some other girl. we all went to take
purikura and damn, b is a pro at that shiet. introduced cal to virtua cop 3. then we all headed out to the restaurant.
a-chan and kuni joined up with us later, as well as q. we had q, kuni, tab as well as tony get on the mic. wish i had my vid camera for all of that. time went by quickly, so we had to run to catch our train. got back to tsudanuma and took a cab home.
well another chill day after another all nighter. 6 all nighters in 9 days. it was nice to come home before the sun came up.
however, i ended up stayin' up til 0330, makin' sure everything was ready for the guys to go home. all the stuff needed to bring for me as well as directions.
monday; 05.09: school, meetin' w/the mayor
the 8th graders did show and tell. one kid had some scissors. kinda makes me think. he did say that he likes to cut things. hmmm...
since i had to be @ city hall by 1300, i had to inhale my food in the cafeteria. iwasaki sensei came in and turned the lights on for me since i was the only one in there. i don't know what it is...the cafeteria ladies @ this school and my last one are all so cute when they're in their lunchroom outifts with caps. as i left, fujino san told me that i need to call ihato sensei again.
so i go back to the teachers' room and call him up. find out that the plans have changed and that i need to be @ ichifuna high school by 1400. so i could've taken my time. oh well. i am also told that i must accompany the principal from moreau tomorrow too. from 1030 all the way thru to dinner time.
so i change into my suit and headed out to ichifuna. met up with the principal and 2 vice principals. met a lot of other teachers too. then finally met up with shiizu sensei (an english teacher that went to hayward with a group) and terry lee, the moreau high school principal. we then headed out to city hall to meet the mayor. talked with him for a bit and then i went home.
headed to ikko for dinner. but before that, went to go buy some flowers for mama. i had some of her grubbin' curry, nasu miso and saba. went home and hit the sack early.
tuesday; 05.10: showin' around terry lee
got a chance to sleep in for a bit. headed to matsukiyo, got my id pics taken, then headed to face to reapply for my alien's card. had a little bit of a trouble but got it worked out ok.
then headed to mac's for some hash browns and then headed to city hall. was taken to the general affairs of the school board and saw miyazaki san there. i got to meet the big cheese of the board of education. since we had some time, we headed to this yukata store for some souvenirs for terry. got this nemaki for the old principal of moreau and then we headed back to city hall and then went headed to katsushika junior high.
side note: the plans for today, as well as yesterday have been so out of wack. one side says and thinks one thing, another side thinks another way, another side thinks yet another way all with me bein' in the middle.
we get to katsushika jhs and one driver and i get put into this meetin' room. then, they bring us tea, then they bring us lunch, then they bring us some dessert. we then meet up with everyone in the cafeteria.
another side note: katsushika jhs is one of the largest jhs in funabashi. with a whoppin' 24 classes! (8 classes in each grade). their 9th grade class is bigger then the size of my whole jhs!! i looked on their club board and saw that they have a boys and girls vball team!?!? they also have a boys soft tennis club! it's the first time i've seen that before.
so after lunch, we have a meetin' with some returnees, students who were either born or lived abroad. it was interestin' to hear their stories about their experiences.
after that meetin', we went to observe some english classes and terry lee even gave an introduction in one of them. it was interestin' just to see another school, a huge one at that for a change.
we then went back to the principal's room but before, one of the english teachers took me aside and asked me to introduce myself to the principal. for some reason (uhmmppphh ihato sensei), the principal didn't know that i was comin' to his school. he's not the nicest of teachers but his attitude towards me didn't seem to happy. oh well...
we then headed back to ichifuna hs to observe tea ceremony. the teacher made some sesame seed tofu which was off da hook. the old principal from ichifuna came (the one who signed the charter 14 years ago for the sister schools) as well as some other people. after tea ceremony, we went into 1 of the 3 gyms and the brass band performed. not exactly sure how they qualify as a brass band when there are strings and percussions as well as dancers, rappers, japanese country style singer, and soul singers. kinda crazy but was dope. especially when all the dancers get up.
we then headed downtown to wara wara for dinner. ihato sensei, my boss, was there. we had tons of food. there was this shark's fin shiu mai kinda thing which was really good. the principal of ichifuna made sure everyone had not 1 but 2 drinks at all times. tsuchida san (the head of the office @ ichifuna) got really drunk. he was so funny. wants to take me to eat sashimi and drink. after our time was up there, we said our goodbyes. but i was told my fukagawa sensei, to come out to another place, where other teachers are at. so i go, meet all these other teachers, drink it up, sing it up. good times yo.
somehow come home and crash out. what a night!
wednesday; 05.12
my busy day of the week @ school. sat thru more show and tells. got angry @ 2-1. even hit the chalkboard.
played vball with toita sensei. unfortunately i didn't bring my contacts with me, so i was playin' blind. i could see the ball but not the spin most of time. kyoto sensei came to observe and boy did he get into the starters faces every time they messed up. parents were observin' the practice because there was a school club meeting. when they left, the game had to be stopped so that the girls could say thank you to the parents.
durin' the game, the girls were havin' a hard time pickin' up the ball. whether it be a "chance" (free ball) over on the first hit or me dumpin' the ball on the second, they just didn't expect it. so when the girls surrounded me after practice, that's what i told them, which was kinda hard to do it all in japanese.
after that, chilled in the gym office for a bit, talkin', drinkin' and havin' some snacks. toita sensei got these donut like snacks and gave them to all the 9th & 8th graders after practice.
went to ikko for dinner and got my grub on. got home and did some stuff around the house before goin' to bed.
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