the dream vacation has finally come to an end. i'm home now and man it's frickin' freezin'!!!.

k, i'm off to have my toshikoshi soba. will update when i have time.

happy new year!

kaz out...

hey everyone. just wanted to let ya'll know that me and eugene are alive and safe. the tsunami hit phuket pretty hard. i'm on the eastern side of thailand, so we're koo. aite then, back to the beach!

kaz out...

aki, ikko, kaoru, me, hide & yoshi 

another long week with a great endin'

it was the final weekend hangin' out wit da fellas. had da pre-party @ sean's. man, that place has way too many switches and sensors. walked to rick & mika's and we drove down to maki's restaurant for the hawaiian christmas party. it was tabehoudai to nomihoudai (all you can eat & drink), 4000 yen for guys, 3000 girls and let me just say that we got our money's worth. kanamai came thru too and brought one of her friends, mariko. unfortunately, yumi and her friend couldn't come thru.

after dinner, there was a hula performance with a live band and singin'. it was pretty good. we all fell in love with this one girl who had a beautiful smile. @ around 2100, the band & dancers took a break, so b and i headed to the canadian house party while kanami and mariko headed home.

when we got to the house, man it was dope. it's on the 10th fl of this buildin' and they had a huge balcony overlookin' tokyo. met the host, brian kobo, who's in some commercials on tv now. he was givin' us a hard time cuz when we came, like 10 girls left. he also said that when the party got started, there was like 20 girls to 6 guys. man, we just missed it! anyhow, met some really koo peeps. one guy, eddie, he's from la and he's been in japan for 16 years! met another one of b's friends, jimmy, who he worked with @ mtv. and the crazy thing bout that nite, actually met a guy who was from funabashi!?! we chilled outside for most of night (yeah, the kegs were...so what!?) chatted with this one girl, rieko, who has a license to teach english but decided that she was only goin' to talk to me in japanese, go figure. got to meet the other roommates and some other folks. they had tons and tons of alcohol and they even had like 3 boxes of bearded papas cream puffs (if ya don't know what that is, i can't possibly explain how good they are!) headed out to catch last train in our very own shuttle (courtesy of brian's car) and headed back to sean's place. rick and him were there and we just came right in time for the suns/sonics game. man, that was a good game! rick and jimmy headed home while b and i crashed there.

woke up and started watchin' another bball game. man, it's totally different watchin' a real game then just highlights on espn motion. b headed out early cuz he's goin' back to sf for xmas and then to the nyc for new years. sean i and i headed out to shinjuku for lunch and some shoppin'. kinda tough to find a restaurant that isn't crowded in shinjuku on a sunday afternoon. after lunch, we headed to don quiyote cuz i needed to pick up a gift for hide's bday. ended up gettin him a jenga set.

headed out to ueno to hide's place cuz we're havin' a nabe/bday/costume party. it was good to see yoshimi again. man, the last time i saw her was @ last year's sumidagawa hanabi taikai. also got to see hiyan, who i haven't seen since the last time we all kicked it. of course, the usual crew were there: ikko, aki, kaoru & of course, hide. we had a good time eatin' and showin' off our costumes/wigs (and exchangin' them). we even went to the grocery store all dressed up to get some more snacks. got a lot of funny looks but it was fun. when ikko passed out the weddin' invitations, that's when it finally sunk in that she's gettin' married. it's only 3 months away. so after dinner, we played jenga with kaoru bein' the loser. the next time we played, it ended up bein' hide but really didn't count cuz we were all getttin' ready to catch last train. it turned out to be a great weekend. got to see all my big bros, met some koo new peeps and saw some of my old friends. good times fo sho!

for those of you who feel the same way about kobe bryant, here's an interestin' article that contrasts kobe with jordan. i think i'm gonna start up that phil jackson book that's sittin on my coffee table.

in sports news:

the first national born japanese player in the nba, yuta tabuse, was waived by the suns.
- it was a good run, mad props to him for even makin' the squad in the first place. maybe he'll get picked up by another team...

man, it seems so long ago when i booked my flight to thailand. got a call from eugene last night which made me finally realize that the time has finally come! should have a blast there. we gots some good stuff lined up. the weather there is around 30c (86f) w/lows around 26c (78f)!!!

well...i'll be in thailand til da end of the month, makin' it back in time for oshogatsu.

aite then, ya'll have a very merry xmas and happy new year! see ya'll in 2k5!!

kaz out...

in da news

ea signs exclusive deal with the nfl
- wtf!?! what's next? basketball? hockey?? baseball??? tho i haven't played either one of the 2k5 games, everyone tells me that espn nfl 2k5 is by far better than madden. now it looks like madden will only get roster updates for the next five years.

firefox gets its 10 millionth d/l since it released 1.0 in november
- have ya tried firefox yet? it's a dope browser...

lexar releases new form factor usb flash card
- looks pretty damn small. i still want a usb flash keychain tho

mondays are tough

so the sony psp came out yesterday. one of my buddies stood in line and got one. pretty hard odds when there's only 200,000 units for about 5 million ppl who want one. i've been readin' reviews on it and there's been a lot of comments about the battery life. i might get the nintendo ds instead.

bein' in tokyo the whole weekend and havin' to come back to work on monday is always a struggle. i must say this past weekend went rather well. had lunch with meg and she got me a xmas gift which consisted of a lego bball set and nike towel. then headed to hatagaya for bball. lisa came and brought a friend. my team went undefeated. we had a well balanced squad: me @ da 1, craig (41) @ da 2, sean (34) @ da 3, derrick @ da 4 (stalky happa from vegas) & peter @ da 5 (tall lanky easter european/russian). the highlight of the day was on the first play, derrick got the steal and i broke out with him. he passed me da rock it was 2-on-1. i quickly thought to myself, is d gonna be able to run this play with me? but within milliseconds i decided to give it a go. we ran a text book passin' drill with me givin' it back to him and vice versa twice before he drew the defender to him and gave it back to me again. i kinda lost the ball at first but gained control @ the last second and put it up. playin' with peter was also a treat cuz he moved without the ball and ran the floor. if you're a big man that does that on my team, u can be sure that i'm gonna get ya the ball. he also had a pretty good j too. his game reminded me of dirk. craig and sean got a lot of hussle plays and we shut down pretty much every team.

after bball, we headed to rick's to help setup for the xmas party. went with rick to pick up some ice and drinks. i picked up some kome sho chu and tantakatan & rick requested tequila, so i got sauza instead of cuervo, cuz cuervo made me black out last time. met a friend of rick's named yolande. she's australian, president of a company, speaks pretty damn good nihongo and can drink. this was a special time cuz it was the first time since all da fellas have been together since sapporo in march! i also got to meet ko's wife, naomi, and their kids hayato 'foster', tatsumi 'hunter'. i also got to meet eugene's wife, satomi. the food was also great. mika hooked up a feast and other ppl brought food too. it was just the right amount and combination. tho, i have little problem. above the food table, there's this hangin' light. i must've tee'd off on that thing like 4 times!?! now i have a little bruise on my forehead. we aslo had a white elephant gift exchange which was pretty fun. everyone's gift was supposed to be around 2000yen ($20). there were some interestin' gifts: picture frame coasters, self-sustained environment, mini-optical mouse, fitness ball, neck cooler, portable picture frame, etc. but junji, bein' mr. big shot salesman @ mtv japan decides to bring something that he got free from one of his sponsers: a 20gb iriver mp3 player! wtf!?! but it did make things interestin' with everyone eyein' that gift. i ended up with the fitness ball. what was kinda weak about the game, rick, scotty and yas all chose the gifts that they brought. how frickin' cheezy is that? you can steal the gift you brought, but to open it up...come on man! the rest of the time, we all just chilled and took off @ a little after midnite.

next day, we met up with kyoko in 'buya and went to kua aina. after lunch, headed to go play darts (my first time). man, darts is pretty fun. once you get the technique down and can aim for specific pts, it becomes a totally different game. sean came thru and met up with us since his wife and kid went to osaka for the week. rick also came thru after the weddin' he went to in ibaraki. by the end of the day, kyoko had won 3 games (well...more like 2.5 cuz b accidently hit the board when he showed her how much she needed to get), i won 3 games, b won 1 and sean won 1. we went to eat afterwards at this one yakitori/kame meshi place. it was pretty good and rick & sean enlightened me about thailand.

kaz out...

man, was this a long week!

classes were ok this week. had the students' job projects tody i learned quite a lot about blood types and relationships. out of the top 10, the type b male highest rankin' was 7th and that was with another type b. however, the out of the top 10 worst rankings, type b was ranked 2 times!

vball this week went ok. didn't really have time to work on everything they need for this weekend, but a little something is better than nothin' i guess. i got to see for the first time the handin' out of the uniforms today which was kinda koo. it's like a mini ceremony. especially when the 3 7th graders were chosen. the 7th graders have grown (ability wise) so much from the first day. i'm spikin' at them durin' drills now at about 80%. a big jump from startin' off @ like 20%. since it's been cold and the air's been dry and also from about 300 balls i hit everyday @ practice, i split some of the skin on my hittin' hand. it's kinda like a papercut but good thing it doesn't hurt as much as one.

been manually updatin' the rosters for nba 2k5. would be so much easier if i had xbox live... i'm done with all the pg's and sg's. gonna finish up the sf's, pf's, and c's tonite hopefully. as for the game, by far the best they put out in terms of true bball simulation. some of the player movements make me feel like i'm watchin' a real game. especially with the half time and end game highlights. the association mode (franchise mode) is interestin' cuz you can be the coach and set the number of shots a player takes, what kind of shots as well as def strategy for each player, all with highlights. if you want to play the game yourself you can do that too. i still haven't even tried out 24/7 mode yet. will probably start that up in the new year.

speakin' of the new year, man, it's just around the corner! i can't believe how fast this year went by. i'm almost on 2 years bein' in japan and i must say it has totally been more than i expected. livin' totally independent has also been a life changin' experience. who knows how much longer i'm gonna be livin' out here. tho i'm asked when i'll be returnin' to da states for good, i can't really answer. my only reply is: "at least another 3 more years" is that crazy? life in japan has been great. thanks to the peeps i knew before comin' here and all the new "family" and friends i've made in the past 18.5 months. as for the next time i'll be comin' back to visit...it looks as tho i might be back in august. i'll be sure in a few months.

well...got a pretty busy weekend with bball and the annual xmas party with the nikkei crew. should be fun.

aite then,

kaz out...

the weekend started off on a super low. headed to chacha after eatin' dinner @ ikko and noticed tons of police in the area. asked mama what was goin' on and she told me that saito san (serenade's owner) committed suicide. i couldn't believe it at first and am still shocked to this moment. here's to saito san, thx for the great memories we had the past 14 months. rest in peace...

saturday, had another vball renshuujiai. takane jhs, our rival came. the last game we played, the score was 23-25, by far the closest we've come. however, they were missin' their ace player. natsumi, the team captain messed up again and got toita sensei so mad, that she told her to go home. and when she didn't, she told one of the girls to get her bag and bring it to her. then she took the bag and threw it outside! got to meet this one coach from kashiwa, same age as me and it's his first year as an english teacher. he studied in wales...nuff said.

that night, was ikko's bonenkai. kohiyama san dressed up as a geisha girl and everyone was callin' him "kopanion san". got to meet kita san's baby's mama. the food was really good too. drank way too much nihon shuu with ezure san. didn't make it thru the night. tried to take a quick little nap = passed out. got back on da bus with everyone and then came home. not sure if i said goodbye to anybody but i really felt dead/exhausted. swerved home and was ko'd in seconds.

was awoken @ around 0500 by the typhoon winds (#27, a record for this year & there hasn't been a typhoon in december as far as ppl can remember) that shook apt and even the slidin' doors within' my apt. after tryin' to fall back asleep for the next 3 hrs without success, i woke and cleaned up a bit. got ready and headed out to tokyo. @ tsudanuma, i went to laox's baby center to look for a gift for the shower. it was kinda weird goin' into the baby section. i ended up gettin' a beanie and then some socks @ gap. met up with ricky @ 'buya, then we headed out to yokohama. since scotty & yas live with her parents, their place is really big. her parent's are really koo. they have friends that live in funabashi, so they come out about once a month. their dad was constantly handin' out the beer while the moms was cookin' up a feast. saw ken, unfortunately he was in a cast cuz he had a stress fracture from runnin' the half marathon last month. also got to see chiaki and she was givin' me all this $h!t bout me usin' chopsticks and japanese. hmph, oh well!? scotty started a pool for the baby. one for the time of birth and one for the length of labor. hindsight, i think there should of been one for the weight but oh well.

said my goodbyes and headed out to shinbashi to meet up with tama. took the yurikakome (driverless monorail) and went to watch sky captain. i really didn't know what kind of movie to expect cuz the trailers and makin' of didn't really show the story. i was pleasantly surprised on the fx of the movie as well as the story. of course, angelina jolie's character was dope as well as extremely sexy. afterwards, went to get a bite to eat @ saizeriya and then went home.

should've went straight to bed, but decided to give espn nba 2k5 a quick test run. the graphics have been improved greatly as well as some really dope new moves. i need to tweek the controller settings a bit to fit my style. i like the hop step but it's the same button as passin' icons which sucks. the half time and end of game highlights are nice new feature. still tryin' to decide which team to use to start a franchise with. need to catch up on the current season. i think it's a toss up between: denver, detroit, orlando, houston or i could just try my luck with a fantasy draft.

kaz out...

rick is a lifesaver!!!

not only did he respond to my email the same day i sent it, he came thru with my request of pickin' me up a copy of espn nba 2k5!!!! gonna try to get caught up to the current season. which team should i use...

- ibm and sony release news on their new cell processor

- man kills self by heatin' lava lamp on stove? the story makes sense when u check out where he lived

vice principal gettin' his run on 

the 3rd & 4th graders 

turnin' da corner 

in da midst of the race 

start of da marathon 

da makeshift kickball scoreboard 

kickball...kinda far away 

close up of the kinako mochi 

side angle 

i feel like mario in donkey kong 

shoji sensei in action 

some more of my students... 

the vball girls & suzuki-chan in action 

eguchi-kun w/ogura-kun watchin'... 

just a samplin' of the various kinds of mochi 

kawahara-kun chillin'... 

monday:

so monday was my jhs's kouritsukinenbi (foundation day), so we had a special speech from da principal about the school's history. i learned some interestin' facts rangin' from: the first year 9th grade class only had like 5 students, so the principal was their homeroom teacher and since there was no taikukan (gym), they had all the ceremonies on the roof!

after the speech, each grade split up into their rec activities. the 7th graders did mochitsuki, the 8th graders watched a movie (patch adams) and the 9th graders played kikku basu (kick ball). i mostly did mochitsuki, played a little kickball and watched like 5 min of patch adams. unfortunately patch adams was dubbed, so it was kinda weird to hear a japanese guy's voice for robin williams. sekiguchi sensei also was a little upset bout that.

as for mochitsuki, we made it the old fashioned way...in a hollowed out tree trunk with a big, heavy, wooden mallet. i got some good hits in. the students garnished the mochi with various stuff such as: kinako (soy bean powder), anko (azuki bean) & shoyuu (soy sauce). i think the kinako was tasted da best.

tuesday:

back to my elementary school but didn't really have a good lesson planned. when i got to school, they told me that the first 4 classes were bein' cut by 5 min cuz of the school marathon. so classes were only 40 min and i was a little late to my 1st class cuz i was busy printin' up worksheets. for the marathon, it was pretty cold outside. after i saw the principal and vice principal runnin', i decided to give it a go. i only ran two laps but it was a good workout nonetheless.

wednesday:

sekiguchi sensei took the day off for a funeral, so i had to teach all 3 8th grade classes by myself. today was also the dental checkup for the students, so most of class time was cut short a bit for it. i had a lesson plan for the first 30 min of class and sekiguchi sensei told me play a game for the remainin' time...however, since i made a review worksheet for the students just in case (cuz the 8th graders are pretty bad). for the first class, they weren't really into the 1st part of class, so, i gave them the worksheet for homework to be completed and brought to class tomorrow. the second class' time was really short but they were really good. so i decided not to give them the worksheet. the third 8th grade class started off pretty slow, then picked up a bit but kinda tapered off at the end, so, they got the worksheet. as for the 7th grade classes, they were all good. i didn't really have to worry bout them.

after 5th period, i was pretty worn out of teachin' 4 out of 5 classes by myself, so i crashed out at my desk for like 30 min. woke up and then headed to vball practice. it was a normal practice but startin' today, the club sports need to end @ 1710, so time is really short. takane jhs also came to use the gym tonite, so we shared the gym for a bit. it was kinda wack when the 8th graders joined takane jhs for a drill. they were totally different players. they actually had intensity!?! while they did that drill, rie and i worked with the 7th graders, unfortunately time was cut short and we didn't get to rotate them. oh well...

had dinner with my mama, she cooked up some crazy food tonite for me. she made me this miso tofu with roasted garlic, a new kind of soup, negi tama tororo (mountain potato w/green onions and raw egg yolk) and this grubbin' omoretto raisu (rice omelette). we also watched these interestin' tv shows showin' household tricks and also this one cookin' show where they have these female actresses/singers/entertainers cook for a panel with a theme. the people we thought were goin' to be good, ended up bein' pretty bad.

well...only 2 more days of work til da weekend. saturday is ikko no bonenekai (ikko's end of year party) and sunday is scott & yas' baby shower and later, movie with tama.

aite then,

kaz out...