The rants and laments of Fred and his dad

brb

2009-10-24T05:29:00.000-07:00

Hey, no, I don't have the flu, but I'm suffering from a serious case of writer's block and loss of interest in girls all of a sudden. Life has never been this boring.

Oh, and I cut my hair like you said I should mom.

bbl

When you wish upon a blog..

2009-09-26T07:31:00.000-07:00

Yeeah I've been lazy. I know. But my father won't sponsor my bustickets if I didn't do another post..

And I've always been an "all or nothing" guy.

[werk en purogwezz peepl.]

AFS Kyoto Summer Camp

Hokay! So, this is late, but the summer vacation started and ended in one go.
In Japan, you only have about.. 3 weeks of actual vacation, because of "hoshuu", which is basically where you just go to school. Yeah.
I didn't have to participate, but I did anyway.

Then, the AFS Kyoto summer camp.
Basically just a camp where exchange students and Japanese highschool students around Kyoto gather and have some fun for 4 days. I think I was just about one of the furthest away people coming.
I went with Nyuu, 11 pm in the evening on a night bus for Kyoto. It took 6.30 hours, i.e. we arrived at half past 5 in the morning.
And I didn't sleep a minute the whole trip. God damn it, I was tired.
I don't know why, but I can't sleep inside busses in the night.. for some reason.

We arrive at Kyoto station, and were picked up by a nice young girl around 19, who took us to her house, where we'd stay and rest before meeting up with everyone else. At her house, there were two other exchange students staying there, Adela from New Zealand, and another girl whose name escapes me from Thailand.
I crashed immediately as I sat down on their sofa, so I didn't get to talk a lot to anyone..

Around 8, we're driven back to Kyoto station, where loads of young people are standing around talking. I don't immediately recognize any faces until I spot a fair-haired giant standing in the middle.. It's Anna, from Denmark! After that, I slowly begin to remember a few faces, but half of the people were Japanese students or AFS volunteer university students.

We were divided into 6 groups, ippan, nihan, sanpan, yonpan, gohan and roppan. First group, second group, and so on, respectively. I was in group four, which is why you see me holding out 4 fingers in many of the pictures. I made that up, and everyone used it. ^^

Steve from Australia was in my group, and we met each other back in the beginning of the year. He has a goddamn fanclub at his school, because of his looks - but he doesn't have a girlfriend, grrr, bastard, haha.

In group four, him, me, and one of the two volunteers in charge of our groups were the only guys out of 12, so the group unofficially became the "Fuu-chan fanclub", lol. Lasted only a day though~
We enter the busses driving us to the camp, and right from the start, everyone's pumped, happy and cheerful.

We listened to a tape the volunteers had made with a quiz - stuff like, what's the theme of this camp (Everyone's a friend), or how can you tell if a girl's popular in school (She wears eyeliner - THIS IS TRUE).

It took a good hour and a half to get there, and when we arrived.. we had to walk 20 minutes. In 31 degrees C man, gah. And so much luggage.. Ofcourse, I'm a guy, so I only had two bags, fairly light. But being the gentleman I am, I carried some of the girls' UBER heavy stuff.

Made me realize that while it hurts on the good guys in the start, it pays off afterwards. And opposite, while it pays off for the bad guys in the start, it's gonna hurt afterwards. Heh.

The camp is a "doujo", which is not a Judo/Kendo dojo or the like, but like... a camp. It was written with the kanji "earth place" if I remember right.. Fairly clean, new (I think) and open. Boys and girls divided into 5 different cabins, so we had LOADS of free beds everywhere. Steve and I got a whole room with beds for more than 15 people for ourselves.

After we'd settled in, we gather outside in our respective groups, which we would do every morning every day. A leader is elected for each group - me! Woo!, and then we proceed to lunch and activities.

We did a LOT, so I'm gonna cut it somewhat short. Also, I forgot. Sorry.

First off, there would be a campfire the first day, so we were to practice dances that we'd all do together. It was to three different, super summer-y, happy songs. Here's my favorite one embedded. "Summer color" by Yuzu.

As you can see on a few of the photos, photo-bombing was pretty popular. Can you find me in this one to the right?

The dances were strangely hard to memorize, even though I really, honestly did my best to.. It just didn't stick most of the time, but it worked out in the end. Everyone looked like an idiot anyway.

Next up was a skit for the talent show for one of the evenings. Each group had to do their own thing, and then people could sign up too and do something. I did We Will Rock You again.
Ho yeah Danish cheerleading. Didn't have any beer to throw around or train chairs to wreck though.

We decided to do a little play, which was spun up pretty quickly on the place. It went mostly back and forth between Manami (By the blue shirt) and I. She's Japanese, 17, but recently came home from a 1-year exchange to the US. Her English was so good, I thought she was a volunteer translator.

She also acted very older-sister-like, always telling me to put on my cap outside or SHUT UP haha, I love her. I seriously thought she was around 24.

It ended up being something like, a gaijin enters Japan and wants to try out the new exciting culture, and starts with the unique food. What I recall was nattou, takoyaki, sushi and wasabi, and probably something else..

And in the end, an "ikemen", literally cool-face, appears, and tells the gaijin that even though Japan is so different, there're also things that are alike. I.e., beautiful(?) guys. Very deep eh. I was the gaijin. Guess who played the ikemen.

We didn't have time to write down a script, so I adlibbed pretty much everything I said, worked out pretty well though - me being the only one having more than two lines.

The other groups performed mostly skits too. There was a mute skit with a guy, specifically the Thai exchange student Thanabodee aka Fo, who'd go out shopping with his girlfriend.. and pick up literally hundreds of girls, mothers, grandmothers and whatever he made eyecontact with.

Then there was a dance show, about some puppets who'd dance when humans were not around. Then 5 humans entered, each picking up invisible "threads" behind the puppets, and making them move around, dancing. That one was my favorite, it looked so smooth~

For individual people, 15-something turned up. The three Thai girls showed a Thai "punishment game dance" which became outrageously popular during the camp, and was used spontaneously by many of the volunteers for no reason. Three Japanese girls came as a group, but individually did; a gorilla imitation (It was great, seriously), pop star imitation (Apparently one of them looked like some specific one), and some kickass robot-dancing. The last one was Akane. You'll find out.

One guy, an exchange student named Nick, played his clarinet that he brought along. He looked a bit like me with the hair, glasses and height, and like Europeans etc. can't tell many Japanese faces from each other, Japanese can't tell many European faces from each other either. So it resulted in many volunteers going "Nice playing on the clarinet!" to me and such, hah. Now I have contacts though.

Fo, the Thai guy, did some Muay Thai fighting dance, I loved his movements, he looked like.. well, a monkey, heh.

Gimantha, a Sri Lankan guy, also did a dance of his country, while wearing this armor-like .. bell suit. It was pretty crazy, he turned around and jumped like crazy, I wondered how he could still keep balance and smile at the same time. Apparently he'd been doing it every week since he was 10.

We also made curry outside in our groups, over a bonfire we made ourselves - like it wasn't hot enough! And the washing was the toughest I've ever done - the soot that stuck to the bucket-like things we used to cook the rice with was near impossible to get off (Rice was cooked perfectly though, woot), my group was first out, though. At 1 hour and a half.

Every morning and evening, there would be 3-4 exchange students doing a little speech in Japanese, while people were dining. That was fun, except I forgot to write mine beforehand. And I was too busy having fun to write one during the camp, whoops..

Ended up scribbling some ideas of what I could talk about, and otherwise freestyled everything, and it went much better than I'd expected, since I'd talked about the stuff/ideas before, to my friends in school. I didn't even have time to talk about the giant net incident..

The volunteers had also made a "kimodameshi", literally "gut test". Basically a .. what the hell do you call it in English, scare run?

We'd go around the camp in groups of 4 people in the middle of the night, solving riddles, while the volunteers would do their best to scare the living hell out of us - haha, was fun, but I wasn't really scared, because it was always easy to tell when they'd try something. Yes, I was with 3 girls, and I was ofcourse the one in front, literally being pushed, lol
Also the reason the guy on that pic up there is dressed up like some kind of.. zombie, with a giant syringe.. thing.

We were often divided into new groups to get to meet new people, too. We had animal, birthday and color groups, IIRC.
Animal groups were for the dances, birthday was for one morning's breakfast, and color was anything else than that.

During the camp, I'd naturally spotted a few cute girls here and there, and there was a semi-cute girl in my group named Reika (Pictured on the right) that I reflexively advanced on.
However, she quickly saw through my disguise..
Mind you, I honestly thought Manami was 20ish until the last day, so.. yeah.

Then, we were divided into birthday groups, i.e. one month for one group. I was.. I don't know.. I don't know, but, holy sh*t, my group was awesome.
If I recall correctly, it was five B-E-A-UTIFUL girls and me. Everyone of them. And they were chatty and nice to boot.

It was a nice breakfast, and that morning had the most speakers too. Enjoyable eternity~

Especially one girl, who sat almost right infront of me.. Akane.
A tiny girl of 144cm or so, extremely lively and cute. I don't know how our conversations went, but she ended up sending flying kisses to me (5, I counted) and making staring contests which she inevitably lost. She's on the right, with the hat on the back.

There was also Yocchan, pictured, who was really good at English and plays piano. She possibly had the most beautiful face I have ever seen. Friendly, but she wasn't interested, haha~

Later that day, the volunteers sold these AFS Summer Camp t-shirts that they announced with a song, going like this:

Atsui~
Natsu ni~
Shiawase~!
(Happiness, in the hot summer)

Dakedo, kimitachi
Nanika wasuretenaika?

(Although, you guys, haven't you forgotten something?)

Sore wa

Shaatsu da yo
(That is, the t-shirts)

Shaatsu no sei da yo

(It's the t-shirts)

Sama kyanpu

Tii-shatsu~
(Go figure)

Then it went onto something about "Buy one now for 1500 yen! CHEAP! Or two for 3000! CHEEAAP!!!"

And everyone remembers it, heh. Everyone bought one or more, because we'd use them to sign and leave messages on the last day.

Then, the bonfire. After we ate dinner the last evening, we went back to our cabins to find a huge wood-like contraption.. apparently to become the bonfire. Looked like you could live inside it to me.

We danced and sang, Tomodachi, President Obama, several Japanese athletes, Spider-Man, Shocker, among other strange and totally out-of-context famous figures appeared during the thing. It was awesome though, I love Tomodachi. *holds up left index finger, yeah, not right pinky*

One of the songs was "Stand by me" - although only the first verse, which kept getting repeated. Some few of us knew the rest, including me, which we started screaming out afterwards, haha

I was dancing casually with Reika from my group, when I was suddenly, literally, pulled down in the neck by something.
"Fuu-chan is Akane's!!"
To which I was dragged out in the middle of the circle people were standing in. Ah, I didn't mind~
Although it was a bit hard to put my arm around her shoulder and dance at the same time without falling over.

All of a sudden, albeit expected because it apparently happens EVERY YEAR - it starts raining. And how! The earthy brown ground became a huge man-eating mud pool. It didn't stop people from singing though.

We afterwards gathered in the dining hall, took pictures and stuff. I had totally forgotten to take pictures during the actual camp, so pretty much all of these are from the final day - except for the ones I got from friends.

As we were drying off our shoes, Akane, who was apparently a close friend of Reika, boasts to her, infront of me "Fuu-chan and I were dancing like Aladdin and Jasmin, you know~!" to which she totally went "Hmph!" to, turned on the heel and walked into the hall. Whoah, dude.
Although her name means "madder", Akane is my gilded butterfly. You'll see in the "Returning to Kyoto" part.

The next day, we were spending most of the morning signing each other's shirts. Took a damn long time, there wasn't enough pens..
After eating, we were driven back to Kyoto station to say goodbye. A lot of people were crying, and as you can see, Shef and Acchan (Leaders of my group) had red eyes on this picture. Although I'll miss my friends, then there's a reunion party in October.

While taking pictures and getting the last people to sign my shirt, I was poked on the shoulder by a young woman - who was apparently my host sister for the next 2 days. I didn't complain, and said goodbye to everyone.

And that concludes this lifeslice.

Pause

Ami was the name of my new sister. She's 21 and a University student, somewhere.
We had to take the train two hours to get to the house, so we got to talk a lot. She's both funny and talky, so I looked forwards to the next two days.

We were picked up somewhere in Shiga prefecture, which is outside Kyoto, by her mother and their dog, Kukku, chihuahua. Man, that thing was hyper and aggressive, but it luckily took a liking to me.

I also had an older brother, although only +1. He seemed pretty shy and was in his room most of the time, although he could talk. Unlike some other people's brothers.

They had a piano! I played casually on it after asking, and halfway through the song, I noticed they were all standing behind me, father with a camera in his hand, videotaping.

Same evening, we watched movies together that they had recorded, including Grave of the Fireflies, A letter from Iwo Jima, and Spirited Away.

The next day, Ami was working, so I went with my mother and Kukku to a nearby fossil-museum of some sort. The house was right next to the biggest lake in Japan, Biwako.

Never really been one for museums though, aheh.

I'd been exchanging e-mail addresses with several people from the camp, mostly girls, which held me up ALL night, replying to them. With about 11 people, I was messaging NON-STOP for several hours. My poor hand.. God, damn it.
I got to sleep in though, which was nice. My mother did come in once around 1 pm to check if I was alive, haha.

Ami apparently worked at an ice cream chain shop, along with other university friends. Since then, I've noticed that chain all over the place, although I forget the name.. 38 something?

Before I noticed it, the two days were over, and I went with Ami back to Kyoto station. Before meeting up with Nyuu as planned, we went around and shopped a bit, ate ice cream and udon.

By that time, I had forgotten completely what day or date it was. Admittedly, I hadn't been able to keep track of that since I left home.

Eventually met up with Nyuu and her family, which she also liked a lot. Her sister at +1 was a real nerd, so they'd been playing games all night.

Boarding the shinkansen Nozomi, fastest one there is, we waved goodbye to our temporary host families, and headed for Hiroshima.

AFS Hiroshima Camp

Culture festival

Sports festival

Returning to Kyoto

Time capsule post

2009-09-03T04:46:00.000-07:00

見たいな

感じで

的な。

I need smilies or emoticons in this blog. Hm.

\o>

Wait don't go, I has pictures!

Q-Gee Chai Kaj

Or, to be more correct, kyuugitaikai. Something like "great ballplay fights".

It's three times a year here, first term, second term and third term. First term ended around July, where the first taikai was held. Volleyball.

We did training in PE, and the guys actually got quite good at it. We were split in two teams because we were many. Unfortunately, at the real thing, the other team won once but lost twice, so my team never got to play against the other classes.

Didn't matter, means I had plenty of energy to cheer. What's that? Embarrassment? Hah! I moon at your sense of shame!

Luckily I'd taught myself the lyrics to We Will Rock You a few weeks before, so I got to shout that out during the cheering for our class's girls' battles. They completely whooped the other classes though. AND the other schools in Izumo, my city. It doesn't go national, though.

The picture there is teachers vs senior sports class, the overall winner of the guys. It seems it's been that same class for around 20 years in a row now.

In Japan, when you say when everyone's happy and cheerful, you say "The tension is high". Reminds me of when my PE teacher tried to explain "rotation" in volleyball for me. "Low tension? What's that? Everyone's really dark and gloomy?"

So yeah, the tension did get pretty high because of the girls' wins, so our teacher wanted to take some classphotos. They're great, the students are actually smiling. There're three pictures, almost the same, but with three you can get three different views of each person.

Lethal vows

This amused me to no end. In Japanese, "martial art" is written with the kanji "fist", 拳, and "law",　法.
Read as "kenpou" when together.

However, kenpou, if the first kanji is different, can also mean "constitution".

I didn't know the latter until after that one history lesson.

It seemed to me that my teacher was going on about how Japanese emissaries went around in the world and studied martial arts from Germany, USA, Russia and the like, to bring back to Japan to make the perfect martial art.

Awesome. Heinrich of the German Fist. Signature move: Strudel Strike.

The triumvirate of cuteness 2: Thrice the mistake

I was invited by Anna to come to another ALT (Alternate language teacher)'s speech thang, about how to hold speeches, for Japanese students. So I pulled Nyuu along, and we by coincidence met the triplets from my school there.

I still can't tell Shiho from Saki, Saki from Risa, or Risa from Shiho. CAN YOU??

Although as Miles told me, their personalities are different. Shiho is always like "Hey!! What's my name (beyotch)???" if she sees me, and I always -got- it wrong, until I noticed she's the "scary one". lol, even other people who know those three think so.

Risa is really cute, and always goes like "Aaaah Fuu-kun!!" and waves wildly if she sees me. She's probably also the easiest one to keep a loose (non-serious) conversation with.

I haven't seen Saki in a while...

Akiyama-kun

Well, I had to join a club some time. Just don't want to go every day, and there's nothing that really pulls my interest for real. So, I joined the art club. The most free club in the school. Haw haw.

Which was a pretty big surprise to everyone in the school apparently, zomg attention!

I was doing a project with a girl from my class, one from the "level-headed" class, and a guy from .. oh, "level-headed" class as well. They're all really nice actually, the guy is one of the most shy guys I've ever met, but he has a kind heart.

The girl from brainy class is also nice, but I wish she'd notice/shave that moustache.... Nerd girls. Sigh.

And the girl from my class.. Ahaha. Oh wow, I have never met a girl like her. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to fish her.

She's just really special. Her name's Akane Akiyama.

Okay, it started like this. After a few days of working on the project (We were carving on some piece of wood, making a picture), I tried to speak to Akiyama. She'd said she'd like to have our history teacher as a little brother (Guy's around 150cm lol), so when he entered the classroom, I leaned over (Yeah, she's seated right next to me) and whispered "There's your little brother!"

No reaction. Ahe.

After school was over, I went to the art club room. As soon as I sat down around the woodboard where everyone were already carving, Akiyama speaks.
"Fuu-kun, I'd appreciate if you didn't talk to me in class." lolwut

"Why?"
"Because I hate guys! It's nothing personal, though!"

lol

wut

"So why can you talk to me here?"
"Because.. we can't do this without communication right?"
"Sooo, why can you talk to Hino-kun?" Hino is the guy from the smartyclass, although the girl is also named Hino, it's confusing.

"Because I don't see him as a man."

lmfao

Man, I feel sorry for that guy, but it's true, ahah. He just can't really talk to... anyone. Especially not girls. And he's one of the worst cases of otaku I've ever seen. Well, so are everyone else in the art club too.

Anyway.

It gets better.

In Japanese, there're different ways to say "I". Bunch of rules and explanation needed here, unless you've watched some animoo.

Basically, "watashi" is used by girls, and "boku" is used by boys, formally. Okay? Good.

Akiyama, female, uses boku.
This is NORMALLY okay if you're about 6-10 years old as a girl, but she's 16 and.. it doesn't make sense. So, I ask her.

"I guess it's a habit from when I was little."
"Why don't you lose it? People'll mistake you for a boy if they can't see you."
"I've had worse. I was confessed to twice in middle school, both by girls."

say wot girl

"First time, it was by a childhood friend. Second time, the person didn't know I was a girl."

Well have a look at that! She refused both apparently.

Oh, and if you're wondering, on the kyuugitaikai/volleyball game classphoto, she's right above the girl with a pink towel around her neck, in the middle.

Mobile HAL

I got a mobile phooone~

And man, it's awesome. I shouldn't really say how much it cost... But it's more expensive than a Wii, excluding monthly fees.

Shock-proof, water-proof, TV, Internet, mails, calls, camera, games, bank, dictionaries..

And it's red. MANPHONE.

On the lower picture, the scope-like thing you see on the screen? That's like, the background visual. It's awesome, bunch of weird stuff comes out. Gauges, curves, statistics, maps, and sometimes there's text and numbers written, although it doesn't make much sense.

Like, something that looks like a city map, and "New Moderate" or "Greenshoal" is written.. I also saw "Distance to Mars 12m" once.

But yeah, I can totally bring it into the shower, hur.

Test week shot

Just one picture from a test week. You can't bring anything but two pencils and an eraser into the class when doing the tests, so all the bags had to be left outside.

....English.

Click at your own risk.

I think I've said this before, but Anna sometimes writes on this blackboard in the hall, like an English question or something, and then you can write back in English if you want, anonymously.

I think some of the sports class guys came by or something here, after watching Terminator 4, apparently..

Shakou is the name of my school, well, shortened up. Taisha koukou.

Shoop da BOOM

Fireworks!! I went with Nyuu and my contact person to Matsue, biggest city in my prefecture, to see this "fireflower" festival.

Camera's getting shittier I think. Sorry about that. Meh, looks good from afar.

"The Quest"

And now for what you all have been waiting for..

Stuff about girls, love, etc.

It started out as "getting that girl", but I guess it's become something like "getting -a- girl" now, lol, or, "getting the right girl", maybe. Anywho, my netfriends just refer it to as "the quest" now.

"How goes the quest?"

I keep picking up new "objectives", though.. although in the end, I can only go with one..

This is still -in the works-, but I can tell you that I've:

Given a letter

Received a letter

Failed miserably during a confrontation

Caught a gilded butterfly

Received a love confession

And I'm meeting with a potential.. goal, on September 20th.

Also, don't read into that list too much. There's more than one person involved there.

Yes, the girl with the hairband, Sayaka, is in there.

Have some teaser pictures of my butterfly. Lower; Center.

Zeta Insert

2009-06-21T05:52:00.000-07:00

There are 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary, and those who don't. And yes, Zeta's a Greek letter.

Hey everyone, I realize I'm a bit behind with various things, but it's been a HELLA busy week. It's not been too smooth, either, with the heat, tests, late schedules, surprise schedules, forgetting birthdays and other important things.

So first off, a present for my brother, who turned .......... 21, this Saturday. He asked if I could put the pictures in the side bar up so that they could be enlargened, so this is the least I can do as a present right now. Here you go, bro. Happy birthday.

And, I don't know if this counts as a present, but since it was father's day today, I went to buy something in town with Nyuu, and came home with a microphone. So now you can call me on Skype if you want dad, or if I'm not around, send me an email saying you want to talk, I promise I won't get mad. This counts for mom and Alek too, of course. But happy father's day.

~~Yeah, these pictures are rather hard to arrange, but hey, at least they're pretty. It'll be better when there's more text here.~~

~~Things to come:~~

More lifeslices, including LOVE DRAMA!, upperclassmen versus lowerclassmen, sports test, encounter with Miles, the humidity & heat of Japan's summer, speech contest results and aftermath, and some stuff about a certain book that's going around in my class.

~~CHESS post written in detail.~~

Pictures I haven't gotten around to taking or putting up, including the black book, CHESS pictures, and more.

See you in a few.

Oh, and

HEY JERKWAD

Sorry! Sorry, I just needed all of you skimmers' attention. Okay, now that I have your attention, please read carefully. See, in the right side of this blog is a bunch of text, what I want you to look carefully at, is the "added stuff" titled part, in red. Here, I put every single update I've done to this blog, so this means that not all new stuff appears at the top!! I may likely just edit an older one, for example add a lifeslice, and then write in the side that I added it. Capisca?
A good system is only good when everyone knows how to follow it. I don't like adding a whole new post for just a few things, this post will be changed into a lifeslice post when I get breathing space to work.

EDIT: 25/6

Hey hey! I'm back, today's no school, so I can write a bit. First off, a special someone who's taught me how to get any person in school to laugh. Woah, woah. Woaaah. WHAAAT?? *Pbblt*

WOOAAH.

Now on to what you've been waiting for, new lifeslices!!

My own personal stalker

This isn't as bad as you would think. Let me start from the beginning.

Wednesday, 24th of June.
In "geijutsu", you can pick between three classes. Art, music or calligraphy. I tried music, then, art, then calligraphy, and settled on the latter in the end. So, calligraphy had just ended, and I was heading back to the classroom with Yuusuke. He asks, "So, anything interesting happened lately?" "Wellllll..... Not.. really, I guess. Maybe.. 1-6." "1-6? Class 1-6?" "Yeah. Lots of interesting stuff there. Heh heh." "Ah, haha. Show me some time."

As we approach the classroom, I notice Moe and Saki giving me some strange looks, like they'd read and understood the notes I did on them in my little black book. I slump down on my chair, and.. What the hell.

On my desk is a small brown paper box, about the size of a Coke bottle. On the top of it, written with a black marker, "Fuu-chan, look inside". My hands started shaking. What the heck is this, a bomb? Gah. I quickly peel the finely folded brown pieces of paper apart, and out falls an even more finely folded green crane, in what seems to be a yellow nest.

I frantically searched every corner of the papers, but there was no name or anything else written.

Now, in Japan, when you say people's names, depending on how well you know them, you must add a specific prefix to the end of their name. The most common are -san, -kun and -chan.

I am generally known as "Fuu-kun" or "Furederikku" to the students and teachers of Taisha High School. Even at the Opening Ceremony back in March, the principal told everyone to call me "Fuu-kun" at my own request.
-san is the most default of the three, and is any gender. You use it for basically anyone you aren't friends with yet.
-kun is mostly used for boys, but some cases also used for girls.
-chan is pretty much only for girls, pets and small kids. Or, someone you have affection for. Parents to their children is okay though, for example, my host parents call me Fuu-chan.
(When you're good enough friends with someone, you can let off the prefixes completely. I do this to pretty much everyone my age, and they don't mind because I'm a foreigner. Kind of funny how the other boys address the girls by "lastname-san", and I casually call them by their first name)

This is what puzzled me the most. I showed it to Yuusuke, and he just spoke my thoughts out loud, "Someone has interest."
So I became a temporary detective. First, asked around the boys in my class. "Hey.. You seen that? Did you see who dropped it off?" "Oh, no.. Hey, those papers.." *He pulls out a wad of similar-looking colored pieces of papers from his pocket* "!!" "I got it from Yoshida-kun, over there. You want it?" "Nah, it's okay..."

"Hey Yoshida, where'd you get those papers?" "Oh, from art class. We did origami today." "I see.. Do you know who made that?" "Hmm, Agou-kun made a box of paper I remember." "Okay, thanks."

"Agou-kun, did you make that?" "Oh, no, mine wasn't brown, and I didn't bring it." "Kay."
Darn it. Anyway, now I know that it's someone who did art, today. I found my classmate list and checked what classes they did in geijutsu. 11 people in art.
5 boys, Yoshida, Agou, Kento, Maruta and Isoyuu.

6 girls, Nagaoka Saki, Naitou Natsuko, Murakami Mai, Kisaka Manami, Notsu Aoi and Akiyama Akane.
Out of the remaining boys I hadn't asked, I was pretty sure it wasn't a prank of some sort. Kento'd do something like this, but if it was supposed to look like a girl's, he'd at least drawn a heart.
Saki and Manami are among my favorites in class, though. But I wouldn't know if the 4 others, who I rarely talk to, have interest or something.. It's a mystery.

I took the piece of brown paper that had the message on it, and wrote back: "Thanks for the trane, you're very good at origami. But, who are you?", and left it on my table.
Do follow.

GIMME DAT
The other day after PE, we were changing back into our uniforms in the classroom. It was hitting 30 degrees C, and we were burning up. Suddenly, Kento, the semi-crazy basketball guy in my class, shouts out "Hey, look! Hey you, wait!"

Apparently some lowerclassmen went by our classroom with a drink in their hands that Kento liked. So, he does how a 'senpai' should do, and "asks" if he can have some. He drank it all.

Zoomboy
Two weeks ago, we did the rest of the sports test outside. 50m sprint and volleyball toss.
It was 2-7 and 2-6 together, and first up were the boys' sprint.
So, 50 meter sprint, and the time's going around 7.0 seconds to 7.8 for the other class. That's pretty fast.. Adrenaline was building up in my body. Back in my old school in Denmark, I was outrun by no one.

You had to pair up with the person alphabetically before you, and run together. However, the boys in my class are unequal, and I'm the alphabetically last.

"Don't worry! I'll run with you!" says the biggest, coolest, craziest and friendliest guy in the class, Yuuji. Oh, man.
"Now we'll see how fast Danish legs are!" "Show us some of that Fu-power!" "Denmark-kenpou's secret running style!"
Don't get your hopes up.

Or what.

"GO!"

...

*Woah, this feels great. I haven't run at full power for a looong time.*

Aaand goal! 6.9 seconds! Awesome! Yuuji behind by 7.1. Best in the class, but the top score in school was apparently 6.4.

Then, the volleyball toss. That wasn't anything special, because there was extremely limited run-up space, so no one got it further than 30ish meters.

Close encounters of the Second Kind

I've recently been getting calls from none other than Miles, the German boy who was here in Izumo as an exchange student last year.

We've had long conversations, without really thinking about who's gonna pay the phone fee - it feels great to talk to someone who's experienced the exact same stuff that you're going through.

So HUMID you could DROWN by BREATHING

So HOT that MEGAN FOX compared is DRY ICE

Picture related.

Hubba hubba Transformers 2

But seriously, heat's hitting above 30 degrees C here. Damn nice to have coolers in the classroom though.

"I have a dream!"

A few weeks ago, I attended an English speech contest in a place called Oda. My full speech can be found here: http://freetexthost.com/3uaffdxpr2

It was a bit too long though, so I didn't manage to memorize all of it, and as thus got a 2nd place for, well, not memorizing it, lol

I went with only one other guy from my school, Yuta Ito, a guy of.. 2-1, if I remember correctly. Really nice chap, albeit a tad shy when it comes to doing AWESOME poses in front of a camera

It took a good while to get to the place from my school, but there were an unexpected amount of familiar faces when we arrived - namely students that'd also participated in CHESS.

It was quite cozy as we were all preparing our speeches, there were two groups, 3 and 5-minute speeches. The 5-minute winners go on to a national comp., while the 3-minuters are pretty much just doing this for fun. I was in the 3-minute group.

Yuta is in the tennis club, and met some teacher who wanted to teach him some tricks. That got us around the school a bit. I felt choked by the stares of some of the more serious yankees the school had (No rules about hair and accessories). That reminds me I need to add a new type of yankee to that list..

..Argh it's too hot to write this in detail, and I want to write about more interesting drama stuff. Here's a picture. Be happy.

Insert thoughts here

I don't know how many schools does this, but in Taisha, there's this notebook the teacher passes around to the students alphabetically every day. The students then write in the book what has happened that day for them, and how they feel, etc. I guess it's a way of 'checking up' on how students feel, although everyone can look in it, any time.

It's been around me once, and I did my best to write how I felt, with my poor, poor Japanese at that time. Also got a look in the other students' heads, to an extent.. I checked the dates, and tried to find the day where I ran into the net in the first PE lesson, and the day where I brought Danish candy along to school, and bingo.
Even better, the two who wrote about those things were some of my favorite girls, Moe Iwanari and Manami Kisaka~

From Moe, it went something along the lines of: "Today, Fuu-kun got tangled up in the net in the gym hall. Taketani-sensei couldn't stop laughing the rest of the lesson."
And from Manami: "Today, Fuu-kun had brought some Danish candy to school. It was like gummy, but in strange colors, there was black too. It tasted wonderful. *laugh*"

Edit: 3/9
Oh, wow. Hey, people. I'm.. late, lol soz don whine k? iz mah site poot

Poor Yomota
During the sports test, we did some volleyball shots to waste time in the gym hall. There was a net set up already, so the boys split up in two teams, on each side, and took turns doing serves.

Yomota, the short, not-too-popular, curly-haired boy in my class had an injured leg, so he was sitting it out in the corner.
When I did my serve (I miss often, because I hit too hard), it flew over the net as expected, but headed straight for Yomota in the corner - bam, and hit the wall behind him.

You know the cold feeling around your heart when like, someone discovered your grave personal secret? I had that same feeling right there for a moment, but whew.
The other guys were going "Daamn! Close!!" though, heh. Yomota's a good guy though, he has personality. dw

Greenpeas/ce
Back in the first few weeks of school, I went around and asked people in my class what they liked and hated.
Yuusuke, currently a very good friend of mine, told me he hated "guriinpiisu", as they pronounce it. "Wtf, why" I thought, "don't they save turtles and icebergs and stuff? Aren't they good guys?"

Apparently, as I found out recently, it wasn't Greenpeace, but green peas.

Reminds me of when I was asked in Hiroshima, "Watto isu piisu tu yuu?" (say it out loud), "Small, green, and give lots of stomach air."

Train Woman
Recently... Well, since I started riding the train to school instead of biking, there's been this... strange... weird.. disgusting, not to mention annoying woman riding it.

Forgive my language, but she looks like a drug wh***, dirty hair, dirty clothes, around her 30ies, 140cmish in height, and eyes like freaking millwheels.

And she likes me. And how, ergh. Everytime she gets on the train (I'm always sitting alone in the train when everyone comes in, from where I get on you have to change trains you see), it feels like she's gonna burn a hole in me.
Managed to ignore her up until now, but now she's been asking if it's okay if she can sit next to me... shit.

Damn it, why do I always get the strange chicks.

BONUS: The Wikipedia game
Credit to Taisa for showing me this.

On Wikipedia, if you click "Random article" in the left upper side, it is guaranteed that you can in 5 clicks or less, from any article, get to Adolf Hitler.

How you do it is, well, you click Random article, and get a random article. Then, from clicking links inside that article, marked with blue, you advance on to other articles, and by clicking 5 times or less, you WILL get to Adolf Hitler.

Try it.

CHESS

2009-06-14T07:23:00.000-07:00

This deserves a post for itself.

I'll write the actual post tomorrow, but here's a teaser picture.

Good night!

EDIT, 21/6: Hello! As you may know, there's something called the "dark side of the moon". Well, I kind of stranded there the past week, and lost all connection to Earth until now. Hey, cut me some slack, I was tired for a bit, contest and such. Plus, the heat's going above 30C here!

Let me explain this post a bit more. CHESS stands for .... I have no idea. But the E's for English.

Basically, it's a 3-day camp where high school students go and speak English, play games, make friends and meet foreigners. I was the only exchange student there out of the 110ish people, but it was still great. I think we were like, 12 boys in total. Bahahahaha.

Anyway, yeah, you can look forwards to when I write the three days in detail here. Not an awful lot of pictures, but enough to fill out.

This post needs time and dedication, so I'll write up some lifeslices later to keep you entertained while I finish here.

One more for the bonfire

2009-06-08T02:51:00.000-07:00

Mah camrah ees workan agen \o/

First up,

Requests

First one from my father who asked for a video of the house. Kinda became a tour of the whole place. It took a bit, so I had to make two.

Second from my good English Internet friend, Lol. Hi Lol! He asked for pictures of the nearest town, because I said I lived "very countryside", however, Izumo City is like, a city, but with a lot of ricefields in between every house.

Plus, the houses are old, and half of the people living here are farmers, but it's no more than 30 minutes biking until the nearest gigantic shopping mall.
So instead, a picture of how secluded my house is. This one hasn't had its quality bisected, so you can see it in full detail.
See the white "roof" thing right in the middle? That's the clinic.

Cut me some cake

This post is dedicated to the.. uh, son of the son of my grandmother, and his friend. Keita and Ryouta. Orange and blue, respectively.
They're 21-years old each, same as you Alek (My older brother), and University students in Tokyo. They came and stayed in the guest room you saw in the video above for a day, and we became good friends.

We went to Izumo City's Taisha shrine together, took some pictures, and ate some soba (5 bowls!)

The statue in the background is Susa-no-o if I remember correctly. It made a pretty good "Promotions!" picture. Don't worry if you don't get what the hell I'm talking about. It's better if you don't.

We really liked to mess around with language while together, for example, they taught me "Kanben shitekure", which means "Cut me some slack". For some reason, it became "Cut me some cake", which made for some good random laughs.

Maybe it was the heat that day, it hit 30 if I remember correctly. This was about 3 weeks ago though, we've entered the rainy season now, so it'll be a month or two before some proper sun.

Yankees

Yankee means delinquent, and I'll do a quick explanation of different types of yankees I know.

Casual yankee: Wears shirt outside pants, blazer unbuttoned. I sometimes do this because I'm hot. (<-- Interpret whatever way you want) They're usually not 'dangerous', but just do this because their friends around them are doing it. One or two in Taisha.

Misunderstood yankee: Tall, dark, skinhead boys who simply like sports or something, and look naturally yankee. They also rarely shave, which makes them look much older. Depending on who they're with when you meet them, they may be slightly hostile. There're a few of these in Taisha, but they don't say much.

Wannabe yankee: Colored hair, really gay shoes, and lives by the rule of cool. These guys pose no threat whatsoever though, because they always hang out in corners of the school, just to look cool. I mean, wtf. l2live. There're a few in Taisha, except coloring your hair is against the rules.

Baddie yankee: The dangerous ones. These guys smash bikes with bats, skip school and hit teachers. They come in many shapes and sizes, they don't have to have their hair colored or anything. None of these in Taisha, luckily.

Lollipop yankee: This one I heard from Nyuu.
Boys who walk around with a lollipop in their mouth all the time, to look cute/cool. WTF.
I'm not sure what to think of this, but she said it's supposed to be appealing to girls, and make them look like they're smoking at the same time.
Doing it wrong, idiots, sucking on a lollipop is appealing to the wrong sex here.

Oh, and just the other day, I was stopped by police on the way home on my bike. They were apparently doing a patrol, because there's been a lot of bicycle incidents lately. I did look pretty suspicious, with iPod in my ears, unbuttoned shirt, silver necklace and a soda in my hand, though.

The triumvirate of cuteness

I only managed to get two of them on this picture.

Can you see what's up with this picture? Highlight below to find out.
In my school, there are three girls who look EXACTLY the same; they're triplets. Saki, Risa and Shiho. I didn't know until recently, when one of them walked up to me and asked "Do you know what my name is?" "Shiho" "Close!" "!?", was really cool when they all gathered together, it's soooo hard to tell them apart.

I managed to catch two of them and some of their friends on the hallway, and took a picture. They're really cute and nice. Today, I met another one of them, who also asked me her name. "Risa." "OMG YES", wuahaha, I've found that Shiho has two tiny moles on her right chin, Risa has one, and Saki has none.
Left Risa in complete bewilderment after that, as practically no one has ever been able to tell them apart.
Oh, and on the picture, if I remember right.. Left to right: Hiromi (back), Risa, Natsumi, me, Saki.
Wah, they're so funny, too. I need to go to the 3rd floor more often.

Flying things go KAMIKAZEEE

Since it's "tsuyu" right now, the rainy season, it's really, really humid. This means a LOT OF BUGS. Especially HUGE swarms of TINY flies, that fly around RIGHT in high-school-student-on-bike head-height. And if you walk into one of their hovering battalions, they'll FOLLOW you, flying into your ears, mouth, nose, eyes, clothes, and who knows where, until you leg it.

Never bike with your mouth open.

Ignorance is bliss, knowledge is power

Pick one...

Remember Sayaka-chan? The girl with the black-and-white hairband. So yeah, she's in the dance club, suits her, loads of cute girls in the dance club.

I was sitting in the classroom after school some time last week, when a girl from my class, Yuki, who's also in the dance club came in to get something, in her club uniform. I asked if she knew Sayaka-chan, and she was immediately like "You like her??", my body language kind of gave it away even though I didn't utter a word.

Next day, on the train, I greet Mao and Yuka as I always do (Left to right respectively, Yuka was the girl from the ""Embarrassment" is not a word where I come from" story in Lifeslices.). Yuka's in the dance club (Can you tell?), and she was giving me some weird eyes.
"Uh, did Yuki tell you about--"
"Yeah, she did, Sayaka-chan's cute, right?"
"Ahehehe.. How many are you in the dance club again?"
"50ish."
"Oh, man."

Skip to last Friday, after school. School ended early, but I was going somewhere, so I was still hanging around. Sitting in the classroom, listening to my iPod, I hear someone coming.
5-6 of the dance club girls go walking by the classroom in a little group. I know most of them well, so I wave to them, Yuki was in the front.
I could see there was somebody trying to hide behind her back, and what's that.. a .. black and white hairband...
The other girls were pushing her forwards, going "Say hi, say hi!", but she was holding on to her wall with an iron grip. They disappeared before I managed to catch what the hell was actually going on, but I can't quite decipher if that was a good or bad sign..

I haven't seen her since then, except for a show that the dance club did for the school. They were going to a competition, and to score some points, I told them that they'd definitely win with that stuff. They did! Bonus points.

See, this is called a "ca-me-ra".
Look at that picture. "Learn how to use a computer". This is making me nerdrage. It's "Useful expressions" for some English homework about what you're going to do in the summer/fall/winter vacation.

I admit I know that at least half of my classmates have never been on the Internet before, but wagh, this place might be more countryside than what I've been thinking.

Ninja bugs
This mother****er is a giant wood spider. Menacing, right? Yeah, these things are everywhere. And they're BIIIG.

Okay, last.. Sunday, was it. Going up to my room to sleeep. I didn't make my bed that morning, couldn't be arsed, so the sheets were lying a bit over the edge, onto the floor.

As I lift the sheets, a 10ish centimeter long, black and red-legged centipede is lying right there, on the floor, was probably getting all cozy under my sheets. If you scroll down, there's a picture in Addition of the exact same type of centipede.

So, my "LEG IT" instincts kicked in at first, but I saw that it wasn't really moving, so I carefully picked it up with two pencils, and dropped it into a plastic bag. Still wasn't moving a lot by then. So, picked up a bug spray, and sprayed its face in, and closed the bag. THEN it started moving, a lot. Went still a bit after though. Went downstairs to flush it out in the toilet.
Area clear.

I didn't sleep a lot that night though, if you've watched the house tour video, then it -shouldn't- be easy for anything to get in to my room. It's the second floor, gosh.. Friggin' things.

Next morning, going to school. Remember to shake my shoes upside-down well, in case of any more crazy insects. Get out my bike, jump on, s- hold on, something pricked my left palm. I look at it, and there's a tiny red mark that's getting itchy. "Wtf? A bee or something? Better get something from my dad on this, it could be bad.."

It's been a week now, and the mark's still there. It's not a mosquito, because I felt some -thing- in my hand before it bit/stung me. There was some spiderweb on my bike's handle I noticed, and those giant wood spiders are everywhere. It was also pretty numb and red for a while, but it didn't get swollen. Checked Wikipedia:

"The venom of the golden silk orb-weaver is potent, but not lethal to humans. Its venom is a neurotoxin similar to that of the black widow spider; however, its venom is not nearly as powerful. Its bite causes local pain, redness, and blisters, but these symptoms usually disappear within a day (though the bite mark may leave a scar)."

****ing A! I was lucky! Well, if it was that spider. Could have been a beetle or something too, but do they have poison like this?

Skip more! Last Friday, returning home late, and there's one more damn centipede in the shoe area. "Eat this!" *steps on head*, the thing then proceeds to spasm violently all over the place, which shocked me quite a bit. Kicked it outside and closed the door.

Should have brought the "1-second centipede killer" spray and tested it.

Mr. Spokesman

Last week, we had an assignment to pick a topic about some thing we liked, and talk about it, while showing illustrations. The idea was that we kind of had to "sell it", as Anna put it.

2 minutes, and it was in Japanese. Uwah. I kind of forgot about it until the day before deadline, but managed to get some good stuff together about digital cameras. Anna helped me translate it, and it turned out quite well.

Quick summary: First off, why I picked this topic. "As an exchange student, documenting my experiences is an important thing, especially if I want to show it to others. And there's no easier way than using a digital camera."
Then, I put the camera itself on the projector so it was shown on a large screen in front of my class. I pointed to its various buttons and such, explaining what was what.

Then, the main part. I took out the 3x2cm 3GB memory card, and put it on the projector. "This thing can hold more than 700 pieces of A3-size high quality pictures." Where to buy, its weight, price, etc. Then, compared it to an "instant/one time camera" with 50ish A5 pictures, which costs about half of a memory card.

Went really well, because I actually managed to teach people something from "the outer world". Mostly people just talked about bands, scissors, cup ramen or football, but this new, smart technological device seemed very interesting to these countryside Japanese.

Anyway, now I've been invited by the school to go to a "speech contest" somewhere outside the city, next week. And it's in English, wahahaa. Gotta beat 'em all.

Daddy longlegs

Sports test today for the 2nd year students. Yesterday were 3rd years. First was flexibility, then length jump, squeezing power, feet maneuverability, and then endurance.

For the flexibility test, you had to sit against a wall, and push a box as far as you could, in front of you. I have really long arms, so mine got pretty far, although probably wasn't the best.

Second, length jump. THIS was fun. The boys of my class and I were kind of playing around before the actual test, because we had to wait for the other class to finish. I showed off by jump up and down, and they were quite surprised at how high I went.
Then, the real thing. Maruta, 2m 40cm. Yuuji, 2m 55cm. Yomota, 2m 25cm.
Me, 2m 73cm.

I am officially the best jumper in the SCHOOL!

Oh yeah! Moving on.
Squeezing test, had to squeeze some weird device. Normal is 35-40, 40-45 is good, and 45+ is pretty nasty. I have thin fingers, so mine only went to 42.6, while Yuuji's went all the way up to 49! He has bigass hands.

Then, feet maneuverability. Oh man, this was bad. You had to sidestep across some lines as fast as you could, for 20 seconds or so. First off, I didn't catch that I was supposed to count my partner (Yuusuke)'s steps, and when it was my turn, I was waaay behind. These poles may be big and strong, but they're impossible to coordinate. This is why I suck at football.

Then, endurance. As we entered the main gym hall, there were a long line of male students running back and forth from one end of the hall, to the other, which is like ... 20ish meters, to some bell-like tune playing. Then, I noticed the counting. "Seventy-one." .... "Seventy-two." "Oh, boy, this is gonna be a bother."

Most died off at 90, then the last 5-10 (Were about 60 to begin with) did their best to get past 100. The last two got past 120, then one died off at 140, while the final guy, Watanabe, a member of the baseball club, got to 151. That is fuggen impressive.

The tune which played in the background got increasingly faster, too, and if you didn't catch up enough, you're out. Well, you can quit any time you want, too.

So, our class's turn. "Yuusuke, let's go to 200!!" "Woah, you really set high goals, man." "That's better, because if you don't reach it, you won't be disappointed!"

Started off slowly, I was taking it easy, just biding my time until we hit the 50 mark. The tune got faster, and I always run at the same pace, so I was getting pretty tired trying to catch up. I'd taken off my glasses, and wasn't paying any attention to my surroundings, just focusing on running. I remembered there was the 50m sprint after this, so it'd be a good idea to save -some- power. I stopped around 110, after a classmate of mine did too. When I looked around, it was a battle between four football club members, two from my class, two from the other.

The others crashed at 120, but my partner, Yuusuke, managed to get to 129 alone. Afterwards, however, he discovered that his left foot's skin had been ripped off quite a bit, and his shoe was soaked in blood. It was nasty, was at least a centimeter of flesh under the dangling skin.

Then the girls went, where most stopped at 70, while the last five went up to 90, and one from my class got to 95.

Then, the sprint.. "Oh hey, it's raining, so we're saving sprint and volleball toss for next week." "FFFFFFFFFFFFFFF"

Addition

2009-05-22T05:17:00.000-07:00

I've realized the "short stories" work well as a kind of daily diary thing. I usually hate doing a diary, because it sucks to write about an uninteresting day, but with little gold nuggets like this, both you readers and I get something out of it.

Of course, unless you ask for a transcription of a full, "normal" day for me. Which actually sounds like a good idea.. Gives you an impression of what happens in between the "Awesome!" moments. Kind of like unaired parts of a drama TV series.

Oh, and instead of short "stories", I guess I'll also be writing about cool things I've taken a liking to (Other than girls), take for example the latest kanji post, "Boredom is a beautiful thing".

I've never been much of a photographer, well, I haz teh l33t skillz, but I kind of limit myself to taking pictures sometimes, so there's only roughly 1 picture per day.

Kind of means more text, less pics, in the future. Probably.

Oh! And speaking of pictures - any suggestions for a new video? I know some of you will be saying "Surprise us!", and I will, but requests are also open. For example, "The first 2 minutes after you park your bike at school".

!

I just thought of a new term for these short stories. Lifeslices. Inspired from what you call "every day"-based anime, "slice of life". *Goes to edit Short Stories title*

So, the coming lifeslices will be a bit lower in awesome, but will have more frequent updates. They'll be well-done and easy to digest, because of the lack of pictures to make up for the possible walls of text.

Enjoy!

Everything is trying to kill me
Wow, tough start huh?
Ever since the first day I came here, there's been something about the darkness in this place that's bothering me. You know how black objects gather dust faster, and become hotter in the sun than, for example, white objects?

It's something about that darkness absorbs stuff. Just look at black holes. Maybe ALL black things have a little black hole in them, sucking in tiny, almost weightless things in the air.. Hm.

Yeah, so darkness absorbs light, too. Creepy to think of. Ever heard the sentence, "When you gaze into the void, the void also gazes into you"? By Friedrich Nietzsche, not sure what exactly it's supposed to mean, but it describes well how I feel about the darkness here.

Every Friday, I go play softball tennis with Nyuu at the other end of town. When I go home, I speed like a maniac to catch the train, because the tennis finishes pretty late. The first time I went however, I didn't know about the train, and had to bike 1 hour and 20 minutes home.

Now, the sun here in Japan sets around 8ish, and when it's off the horizon, the whole place just goes..

Black.

Izumo is shaped a bit like a billiard table, without the holes. All around it are mountains. And, it's the countryside, so the road I biked home along had no lamp poles. Just me and my dynamo.

When I looked forwards, the darkness infront of me literally tried to creep into my eyes, felt like I was going blind. I made it home safely however, and I've never actually been afraid of the dark, but it's just .. different here.

The first night I slept at our 200-year old home, the rain was really heavy. So heavy, it sounded like someone was banging on my window all night long. Creeped me out pretty hard.

Infront of my house are kilometers of ricefields, some houses in between. I usually walk Tsukasa among them.

Around a month ago, I was walking him around 9 pm, along the creek that runs beside the fields. There're these sewer-like outlets coming from underground, pouring water into the creek, too.

I wasn't used to walking around that place in the dark by then, so I was kinda paranoid.

Then, it went like this:

"Black, fluffy blobs of unknowingness. Darkness equals the unknown. Humans are afraid of what they cannot see. Hearing things just makes us crazy. Smelling, or feeling, creeps us out. Grass blob. Mucus? In the sewer outlet-thing.. Haha.. You can't fool me so easily.. Oh god, I think it moved.. No. *Rubs eyes* Imagination. Kind of funny how my brain is trying to warn- OH [censored] IT'S [censored] FLYING, [censored], [censored]"

I hate flying foxes.

My name means "peaceful ruler"
Cool, thanks mom, dad.

My face! My beautiful, beautiful face!
I wonder if this one was karma. A week ago, I went to meet the mayor of the city. However, 3 days before, I was helping my mother put up some insect-nets on the house's windows.
One of them was particularly big and heavy, and was going somewhere high. I tried to squeeze it in, but my hand slipped, and it fell down and bruised my nose.
I've always been praised for a pretty, symmetrical nose, but now I had a really big, nasty spot-like scar RIGHT in the middle. [censored].

It didn't heal in time for the meeting, but no one really asked about it either, except for Nyuu I think. Just a day after however, it healed right up, and there's no trace left as of now.

But damn, that was like getting a pimple on your face right on the classphoto day. Buh.

Rice wine called Popularity
Because those are the two things in life that really get to my head.

Yesterday, Thursday, Nyuu and I were planning on giving Anna a present with souvenirs from our respectible homecountries. We were both very busy though, and it ended up with me having to go into her school, in the middle of lunch, get her present, and go home to pack them together.
Norin, Nyuu's highschool, is an agricultural-focused school, while Taisha, mine, is more.. brainy.
Shows on the students, it's two different worlds.

Taisha uses black uniforms, while Norin has a mix of blue blazers and some tartan-patterned skirts. So I kinda waded in on the school, in my highly visible black "suit" and foreign face.

Wow, I have never felt such weird pressure before. A bunch of students were coming out from the main building Nyuu told me to check for her. I asked where the vegetation class was, but it seemed the students were too surprised to answer.
One boy took me inside the building though, so I followed him.

Went up some stairs.. "It's on this floor", "Okay, thanks". Luckily, the very first class I check, Nyuu is sitting in. It's still breaktime, so I kind of sneak in there and poke her on the back.

Moments later, an ear-splitting "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!???????" can be heard from the corridor infront of the class. As I look over my shoulder, I see a tightly huddled-together group of students, glaring at me like I was some gorilla escaped from the zoo.
I make eye contact with a pair of girls, who promptly leg it, and scream.

"Woah, wtf, am I on fire or something?"

The teacher enters the class, so I quickly grab the present and get out of the classroom, and the school. I've never felt so many eyes going "WUT" over me before, at the same time. Holy [censored]

I like it.

There's something about Norin and Taisha exchanging their exchange students for a day.

I am looking forward to it.

More Denmark-kenpou
I recently introduced my classmates to the "hand-slapping game." You know, the one where you hold your hands together like after trying to squish a fly, in front of another person who does the same, then you have to slap their hands, but they will try to avoid your slap by moving their hands from each other vertically.
Then, if you hit the person's hand, it's their turn. Makes for some great, moderately harmless fun.

This became known as the official "Denmark-kenpou" way of fighting. Seems that some of the boys have started doing it with their faces instead, though. Ouch, idiots.

The attention game
I love cleaning time, always meet some new people. Recently been seeing a girl named Yuki quite often, she's very nice, and an upperclassman. Last Friday, she introduced me to some of her friends when she met me at the trash dumpster place, I got trashcan duty.

So, they were like 6 girls, and me trying to answer a bunch of questions all at once. Then, in the back, Yuki and one of her friends would stare at me with the most powerful eyes they can make, until I make eye contact. The one that gets eye contact first is the winner of the "attention game."

I'm not sure what to think of it really, other than Japanese culture really is strange after all.

Barabarabareebooru
More volleyball! No rules ftw!
Barabara: More Japanese onomatopoeia, "all over the place".

Sums up our volleyball matches very well. Smashed serve incoming! It's too low, block with your face! *Slam*

He who speaks does not know, he who knows does not speak
In Taisha High School, the classes are divided in a peculiar manner. 8 classes per year, and you call them like 2-3, for example, is "2nd year, 3rd class".

Classes 1 to 3 is "math and science course", 4 to 6 is "language and culture course", 7 is "level-headed class" and 8 is "sports class".
The "level-headeds" are basically students who are so smart they get in a class for themselves.. Oh schmuck, I just noticed my newest target is a 2-7'er.

Last week, it was announced that my class, 2-6, had higher scores on the mid-term exams than 2-7. Cool, huh? But here's the catch.

When a teacher asks a question out loud in class, NO ONE WILL ANSWER, that's a fuggen rule, okay? DON'T say a WORD.

Just STAY QUIET. And if the teacher asks you by name, act like you don't know.

At least, that's how I think it is. Because the students always get really high scores on tests and stuff, it's just like they can't speak during lessons. I don't know. It's confusing.

Hate is a many-booted creature that bites
It's almost time for the centipede season. Hoo-yay.
These things are BIG, man. And they bite and sting and stuff. And they're poisonous. And predators. And live in the mountains, and like to enter houses and crawl on tatami.

Oh hey, my house is on the foot of the friggin' mountain. I need to get some steel-plated sheets now or something.

Lost in comprehension
This story's old, but I like it.
Back in the first week of school, we were taking class photos. I hadn't quite caught up who the hell were who, so I just followed a bunch of students around, hoping to get to the photography place.

Two girls I don't remember spoke to me:
Them: ((English)) "Hello!"
Me: ((English)) "Hello."
Them: ((Japanese)) "He's cute."
Me: ((Japanese)) "Thanks."
Them: "OMG" *Head explodes*

lol

The black notebook
My older brother gave me a little black notebook for my birthday, whose purpose I do not remember anymore. However, it's been put to very good use.

I got a copy of the classphoto in paper and enlargened form, cut out my classmates' faces, and glued them into the book, as well as a small profile for each of them. I had a really hard time remembering faces and names in the beginning, but thanks to the notebook, I can always find out who's who.
I have like 10 Yukas in there though.
Makes for an excellent discussion topic with new people.

Started drawing in it too now, because, well, I get bored.

Pictures soon.

The girl with the black-and-white hairband
Last Tuesday, I was going to get my shoes at the shoe locker with two guys from my class. We were kind of in a haste, so I ran through the corridor on the way there. I passed by a person just as I reached the lockers, and from then on, there was an extremely weird feeling in the atmosphere..

As I turned around while putting on my shoes, I see a beautiful girl, who looks me straight in the eyes.. but for a moment. She quickly looks away, and disappears down the corridor. I was kinda dazed, was it from fatigue or her eyes, I don't know, but I don't remember her face. The only thing I remember was her hair, she wore it like a ponytail over her shoulder, with a black-and-white hairband.

Yesterday, Friday, after school. I usually go to tennis with Nyuu at 7pm, but school ended early (2ish), so I was like "Bweeeh." in class.
Some students were still around, doing homework or talking. The most popular girl in my class, and possibly the whole year, was sitting by the teacher's desk, talking to a friend.

Enter the girl with the black-and-white hairband. I didn't notice at first as she approached the teacher's desk, until I saw her eyes going from her friend to me, back and forwards, like crazy.

I kind of froze, just staring at her, until she turned around and prepared to leave the class. Woke up, and thought to myself "Are you seeing things? Look closely, check, is she really.." Yes, she was. She was looking at me. I still don't remember her face, but I got her name after asking around. Sayaka Maniwa.

To be continued.

Lifeslices

2009-05-14T04:42:00.001-07:00

Pictures explained in the bottom of the post! As usual, they have zilch to do with the text next to them.
EDIT: 18th of May, I added some more stuff, do read! Oh, and don't forget to vote on the right.

STILL TAKING REQUESTS FOR WHAT YE WANT PICTURES OF. THINGS HAPPEN A LOT QUICKER WHEN SOMEONE ASKS FOR EEEEET. Just leave a comment of what you want pictures of!

Here're some short stories about funny events that's happened since I came here.

The WEB
The very first gym lesson I had, two months back. I hadn't received any gym shoes yet, so I had to run around the school with my teacher and search for some.
I always take off my glasses during sport, except softball tennis, I have -2 (I can't read stuff from afar), which makes it hard for me to see people's faces without them.
So, I got my shoes, which were a number too small, and I entered the (HUGE) gymhall. A bunch of students were lined up in a long line in front of me. At this time, I hardly knew anyone, mind you. Was like, my 4th day at school.
I was trying to tie my shoes, when my teacher (Same I'd been running around with) said "Go over there.", so I ran to the end of the line, and continued tying my shoes. Until a girl next to me poked me and pointed to the other end of the hall. I'd lined up with the girls.
So, I stood up, and looked to the other side of the hall where all of the boys were, thought it a good chance to show off my running speed, and boosted off at full power.
Neeow... Oh sh- *Crash*
There's a HUMONGOUS green net set up in the middle of the gymhall, which was too thin for me to see or react to at my speed. I looked like some surprised fly that'd flown right into the net of a spider.
Quickly recovered, and slipped under the net. Everyone in the hall was laughing, and though I was a bit embarrassed, it surely made an impression on people! I regret nothing.

"Embarrassment" is not a word where I come from
I love being a gaijin. I've been taking the train more often, because there're a lot of nice and talky students on it. Two particular I usually sit with in the morning, Yuka (I know about 10 Yukas) and Mao, 3rd years. Yesterday, I was sitting in the end of one of the train's cars with Mao, waiting for Yuka to arrive. She did, right before the doors closed. Mind you, this car was stuffed with students, some standing up.
So, no seat left, and a girl is standing. What is a guy to do? Offer her his seat, of course!
Now, this kind of courtesy between male and female teens is quite.. uncommon, however, I'm a gaijin, and I can do whatever the **** I want, without anyone raising an eyebrow, right?
Well, something like that, sure as hell did raise some eyebrows, and Yuka was looking like a boiled crab after I almost had to push her into the seat. Haha, blushing girls are so cute.

Now you see me, now you don't
Right now there're midterm exams, so there're no club activities. Meh, bored.
A week or two back, I was walking around school because I didn't want to go home yet. The brassband which has some 60ish members practice EVERYWHERE, 6 days a week, IIRC. You can find them in the bicycle parking lots, gym hall, classrooms, unoccupied random unknown rooms, etc., it's pretty funny to hear a tuba blowing from what seems to be the toilet.

I was walking over the walkway that connects the head/teacher's building to the classroom building. It was the top floor one, so there was no roof or anything.
In the window of one of the head building's rooms, I hear music. Well, not really, I think they were practicing different melodies individually, so, yeah.

Walking a bit closer, I see a girl looking out the window, blowing into a harmonica, or some other flute-like thing. I immediately halt, and stare at her (Yeah, she was cute, I didn't think she'd notice me though), which kind of surprised her I guess. She proceeded to turn around, and laugh uncontrollably, the other girls in the room coming over to her to see what the matter was.
I quickly duck behind the wall-like fence that surrounds the walkway, out of sight. Kind of like a reflex.. I could hear them talking and also opening the window a bit.

After a few seconds, stand up, to see her resumed to blowing into the flute-thang. *Stare*, and combo! She breaks again. Man, I really enjoyed that.

GIRIGIRI
"Girigiri" is kind of half word, half onomatopoeia Japanese, and means "just barely". Today, the last lesson was off, so we got to go home one hour early. However, it was already too late to miss the next train, so I just walked around the school and talked with clubs like I usually do. Oh! And I found the article where Nyuu and I are with the mayor of the city. I'll upload a picture soon.
After some 30ish minutes I'd returned to the classroom to talk with some of my classmates who were still studying.
I was staring at the clock.. staring.. staring.. (Yeah I stare a lot huh?), until I suddenly realize the train doesn't leave at 16:15, but 15:55, and it was 15:45. There's a good 20-minute walk to the station from the school. OSHI-
I'm damn glad I got those [awesome shoes] for my birthday. Perfect for sprint. My bag is also meant for mountain climbing, so I strapped it on as tight as I could, and sped towards the station.
This place is quite countryside, so there's no fence around the railroad, and only those bars that come down at the crossing places.
Right as I made it to the crossing, seeing the bunch of students standing by the station, the alarm-thing that rings when the train arrives starts dinging. The first bar almost hit my head! But damn, that was close. Had to limbo under the next bar, too. Was pretty uncool to arrive all steamy, buttons unbuttoned, shirt out of pants. "Fu-kun no yankee(delinquent)!"

When the fat lady sings, at 12 and 18
EVERY day. I can't imagine how you can get used to this CRAZY air-siren. Tsukasa hates it too, and will cry like it's being eaten alive for 3 minutes.
Really sucks on weekends too, when I try to sleep in. It's supposed to be some kind of "lunch time" and "go home time" alarm. I'd more than once choked on my drink thinking we were getting bombed or something in the beginning.

The kanji for my name means "sneeze"
嚔, read as "Fu", but normally it'd be read as "Kushami". Maybe because I can sneeze without sound? Feels like I'm blowing snot out of my ears every time, though.

A left hand makes for a great notebook
I'm serious. Even the ALT at my school does it.

Okay.. Oh wait! Okay... Oh, wait! Okay, okay. Oh, wait.
Jonas, from my old class, just told me this little story. I've translated it as well as I can.
A woman was picking corn in the field. Then, she saw a straw of gold amongst the corn, and dropped the corn to pick it up. Behind that straw of gold though, was another golden straw. Behind that too, was another. She picked up all of them, until she had her hands completely full. She continued to follow the trail of straws, and eventually arrived at a plain of golden straws.
When she finally returned home, the gold was frozen, and she was starving because she didn't pick the corn.

This is kind of how my love life is right now. I settle on one cute girl, and think "Okay, let's get 'er.". However, with 1000 students at school, it's inevitable for me to suddenly catch an even cuter girl sending a look when I pass her in the hallway. Then I have to go through the process of finding her name, class and what club she's in. This has happened three times now.
Either I'm too picky, too stupid, too impatient, too damn lucky, or all of the mentioned, but I've set the goal that I'll be bringing a set squeeze along for the Obon in August.

Volleyball GOD-LEG
What I'm missing in ball-control and leg motor-coordination, I make up for in reflexes.
In the recent gym lessons, we've been playing a lot of volleyball, going from throws, to delivering, serving and passing, etc. Damn, it really hurts the underarm to do under-hits.
There're no students in the school who outright dislike or are hostile towards me, so I have no fear in whatever I'm doing, at any time. If I fail, which I -have- done, many times, at something, they'll just laugh it off like the net-event.
This week, we were playing a match, boys from my class versus each other, two teams. However, no rules. Just "try" to play.
I was in the back, and every time the ball came over to me, someone in from would back up and take it. In fear of hitting them, I'd also back up and let them take it.
However, Yuuji, the pervert, wanted to try serving, and that guy's nuts. So, he smashes it at full power TOWARDS ME (I bet he did it on purpose). It was JUST out of range for me to use my hands and send it back safely, so by reflex, I literally threw my leg at it, which it bounced off of, hit my left hand, and flew back where it came from.
This happened two more times, every time it was right out of reach, I'd just throw my leg infront of it, and with a little luck, it'd bounce upwards, if not fly to the other end of the hal. The others tried it too, but it was mostly luck when it was successful. I love no rules.

EDIT: 16th of May

My kingdom for your iPod
It's not allowed for students to use an iPod when riding a bike, which kind of sucks, but is understandable because there's normally only one side that has a road for bikes, or none at all.
I was fiddling with my iPod in class (It's also against the rules to use it in school, but I was just fiddling), when the guy next to me, Yuusuke, asked if he could see it. I always have a black rubber-leathery cover on it, but I pulled it down to show a dragon "tattoo" I'd put on to it back when I was in Kyoto with my dad.
He was like "Woah, how much did it cost?", I mistakingly replied "600.000", because in Japanese, you count hundred, thousand, ten thousand, hyaku, sen, man. I said "Sixty man", "Sixty ten-thousands", for some reason, was kind of tired I guess. 600.000 yen is 30.000 DKK, 4,663.08 EUR. They actually believed it though, probably thinking it was because of the dragon. It's in gold and silver, so they may have thought it was -real- gold and silver, haha. A few minutes later however, when they were going "For real?? 600.000??", I wrote down the intended number, and realized my dumb.

Way of the potato
For some reason, a new craze is going on with the boys in my class. It's called "Denmark kenpou (martial art)", which involves weird hand movements and unecessary footwork, as well as flicking ears. It's quite interesting to watch, though.

Karma sucks
A few weeks back, I was in the bathroom, and saw a big, nasty cockroach on the floor.

You enter bathroom.
You see sink, toilet, door, window, cockroach and two slippers.
>>Examine cockroach
You examine the cockroach. It is hostile towards you.
>>Pick up slipper
Which slipper are you trying to get?
>>Pick up slipper 1
I don't see slipper 1 around here.
>>Pick up one slipper
There are two slippers.
Which slipper are you trying to get?
>>PICK UP FIRST SLIPPER
You pick up a slipper.
>>Equip slipper
You put the slipper on your foot.
>>Equip slipper into hand
You don't have a slipper.
>>Unequip
What are you trying to unequip?
>>UNEQUIP SLIPPER
You unequip the slipper from your foot.
>>EQUIP SLIPPER INTO HAND
You put the slipper in your hand.
>>ATTACK COCKROACH
You strike at the cockroach!
You MISS!
The cockroach escapes under the sink.
You sense bloodthirst in the air..
>>QUIT
Thank you for playing!

I swear, I could -HEAR- it going "I'll get revenge, you filthy hairless monkey!". I quickly ran up to my room, closed, blocked, locked and sealed any entryways to my room, and the second floor.
The next day, I was going to school. Half way down the road from my house, I stopped, because there was a rock in my shoe. Or not. As I shake it, bottom up, a very dead cockroach falls out of it. Guaaaaarh. *Shiver*

Sport is bad for your health
A good while back now, I was with the first-year students' "club orientation", where all of the clubs talk a bit about themselves. I mostly didn't understand who were who, even with a list of clubs, unless they brought like, a football, or a koto, or something.
The kendo club brought a guy in crutches. Wow, is that bad advertisement. I told him that afterwards too, but I guess it also kind of sieves off the weak and afraid.
A week ago, I was walking down the first-year's corridor, when there was another guy on crutches. "Kendo?" "No." "Volley?" "Uh, no." "Then what?" "Basket." "Guh.."
And just yesterday, outside the teacher's room, a girl, on crutches. "Oh, ouch. What did you do?" "I'm in the dance club!"
Strange Japanese culture.

Shake shake
On the topic of the dance club. About the time of the club orientation, I was walking around the school with the ALT, Anna (Real name Angharad, Welsh). We were at the kyuudo building (Japanese bow art), when some first-year girls came out of it. They were looking at clubs to join, so I asked if I could come along. They were pretty good at English, especially one named Momoko. She looks JUST like a Danish girl I know, Anne, but Japanese.
Eventually we arrived at the dance club. Dance club is all girls. The first-years were the ones who wanted to go, okay? I didn't ask to sit and glare and a bunch of girls in bloomers shakin' it to music. Got kind of awkward after while, but the girls of the dance club have since then been greeting me quite openly.

Strange foreign language
Being a gaijin has many, many good points. One being your name and language. Okay, it's all subjective, but still.
I really wonder how it sounds to people who don't understand Danish when I speak it. Like randomly moving your tongue around, while trying to produce the deepest sounds your stomach can make? I have no idea.
I'm generally known as Fu-kun, but some ask my real name, and for the lulz (Internetspeak for "fun"), I add some of my parents' middle and last names, so it becomes "Frederic Birger Tungboon Briansin Udengaard Pedersen". Japanese really like the sound of "Udengaard" for some reason.
Nyuu too, real name "Vannarin Intasamakul". Thai too, is completely incomprehensible to Japanese, and it's too funny when she says the full, Thai name of Bangkok.

Boredom is a beautiful thing
I have a lot of free time. That is, lessons where I'm not being overly productive. So! With an electronic dictionary and a BUNCH of Japanese stuff around me, what does one do? Find strange, cool and unorthodox kanji of course!
I can write them too, correct stroke order and all!
永, 門, 千, 代, 主, 紫, 炎, 花, 縁, 山, 土, 露, 死, 角, 音, 無, 東, 青, 龍, 南, 朱, 雀, 西, 白, 虎, 北, 玄, 武, 特, 別, 暗, 殺, 部, 隊, 者, 解, 獣, 体, 闘, 魂, 伝, 承, 帝.　

These are just my favorites. It's not so hard to write them when you understand what they're "made up of".

*Deep breath*
Ei, mon, sen, dai, shu, murasaki, honoo, hana, en, yama, tsuchi, tsuyu, shi, kaku, oto, mu, higashi, ao, ryuu, minami, shu, suzume, nishi, shiro, tora, kita, gen, bu, toku, haka, kura, koroshi, tomo, tai, mono, kai, juu, tai, tataka, tama, den, shou, tei.

Eternity, gate, thousand, years/etc, lord, purple, flame, flower, destiny/bonds between people, mountain, earth, dew, death, corner, sound, void, east, blue, dragon, south, vermillion, sparrow, west, white, tiger, north, professional/expert, warrior, special, distinction, dark, murder, division, squad, person/perfomer, release, beast, body, fight, spirit, a life/lifetime, tradition, emperor.

Uhh, yeah. They're read in many ways, too, for example "特別暗殺部隊者" (From "toku" to "mono"), instead of being read as "Tokuhakakurakoroshitomotaimono", it'd be read as "Tokubetsu ansatsu butaisha", to be correct. Meaning "Special assassination squad member".
What?

Here, taste! It's FOREIGN!
Third week or so of school, I brought some real Danish candy along to share with my classmates. I'd received a bunch on my birthday from some boys from my old class (Tak for det, Lasse, Joachim!), so there's plenty to go around.
Now, liquorice, and Japanese people...
They didn't trust me initially that it was actually edible. And they didn't change their mind after putting it in their mouth. I tried to explain how it's made from that.. tree, and whipped something up about it being a "manly taste" back in the old times of Scandinavia.
Was pretty funny when I'd been around the whole class, and the teacher entered the room. A guy told me to give her some, so I did. As I handed it to her, the whole class went DEAD silent as she slowly and cautiously put the little black piece of candy into her mouth..

I guess adult Japanese have had more time to train their facial muscles than high schoolers, oh well. I handed the rest of the bag to Anna in the teacher's room, and asked her to pass it around. Surprisingly, when I returned in the afternoon, all of the teachers were still alive and healthy.

That was two bags.. Third time's a charm.

The pictures: Top to bottom!

From the sand dune in the prefecture next to the one I live in. People from all over the world had made sand sculptures like there, I was invited to go by Nyuu and her family. We weren't overly amazed, but it was pretty cool. A gaijin thing I guess.
This.. I forget, but it's mochi (molded rice) in sweet red bean "soup", with some tea, and salted seaweed. Tastes GREAT. The seaweed is like liquorice.
From the shrine in my city. The while stuff are fortunes that people have bought, which they tie on to parts of the shrine after reading. I forget the reason.
First picture of me and Nyuu with our families in the airport, back in March.
Tsukasa sleeping. That tongue..
My alto recorder, no, it's not wood, that'd be adding an extra decimal to its price, and it's already 4000 yen.
When we went to meet the mayor in the city hall.
Badass picture from one of my favorite manga.
Two girls working hard in my class.
My room! Tiny, but I love it.
Front of my house, yeah, it's big.
Entrance from the side.
The Sonoyama clinic, which my father is the head of. It's right next to the house.
This one's from back in March, but please, do click it. The pink stuff in the mountains are sakura in full blossom. Pretty, right?
The ALT at my school, Angharad, AKA Anna. She's 24, turning 25 this Friday, happy birthday! She's English, and is pretty much the only other person around who has the same level English as me, so I always come visit her in the teacher's room just to chat or whatever.

Note: I've noticed some pictures won't enlargen if you click on them, this is a bug that happens when I move them around. It can be fixed easily however, so if you notice one, don't hesitate to say something! I'm too lazy to click on all of them.

From the moon

2009-04-25T00:09:00.000-07:00

Oh hey! I have some pictures! Sorry, been busy fighting demons with swords, fending off a harem of double-D schoolgirls with multicolored hair, beating gyms with my pokeymans, and getting killed without dying, like any other Ordinary High School Student.

So, pictures. They're high quality, and they're BIG, so bring lube, it's like downloading digital watermelons.

...Okay, it just took about 6 minutes to upload this one picture. I'm going to have to find another way.

Anyway, this is my class, it's a picture of a copied picture, so bear with the quality.
Targets:
Top row, right of middle.
Second top row, 2nd from left.
Upper right corner.

Be back later! Oh, and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVMDpw4QYkk&fmt=18

EDIT: 9th of May

Yo, resized some pictures, but they still take a while to upload.
This is my father and mother... Whose actual names escape me at the moment, as I refer to them as otou-san, okaa-san, or Sonoyama-san.

The two people from the AFS camp I miss the most, Tryggvi from Finland and Anna from DK(!).
GET IN CONTACT WITH ME YOU BISHES
Also woah, my hair is short

Sakura! Yeah, this is from back in March. Sakura, cherryblossoms, only blossom for a week, but they did a damn good job showing off for me.

This is a road I bike down every day on my way to school. It takes 40 minutes (35 if the wind is favorable, 1 hour if not), and I -could- go by the train, I just .. cba, I guess, heh. Though there are a LOT more girls on the train. Hm.
To be considered.

Uniform! I'm sexy as hell, yeah. no

An example of what goes on on the blackboard in math lessons.
THIS IS LITERALLY ROCKET SCIENCE

So I spend my math lessons drawing on my hand or thinking about the origin of the universe.

This is the dog of the house, Tsukasa. He's an 8-year old Shiba-ken, a Japanese so-called "samurai dog". These cute-looking devils were bred from wolves and foxes, and samurai would train them to kill. They still do. This guy, too, I have proof on my hand that those teeth he has aren't just for show.
Relax, mom, Huan actually did more damage than Tsukasa when he was 3-months old, haha.

Anyway, I've taken a liking to him, and have walked him when he'd cry and scratch at the door, everyone ignoring him, so he's become quite fond of me. Gotta watch that tail, though, if it's not waggling, step away. lal. There's excitement everywhere here, even in the house!

Now for a video. This was taken right after the final lesson, last Friday. After the last lesson is over, everyone pulls their chair and desk to the end of the class, and proceeds to designated locations around the school they have to clean up. Good chance to meet new gir-, uh, people, who don't come around my classroom often.

((PICTURES ON THE RIGHT HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THE FOLLOWING TEXT. READ ABOUT THEM AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST.))

As for dialogue, who is who:
First up, the girl turning her head, Sakura, head of the chorus club. I often go and participate in their club, just because they're so friendly. The songs they sing are boring as hell. I affectionately call her "buchou", meaning "club head." She's occupied, btw

Yeah, Japanese people ALL initially turn away from cameras when they see them pointed at them at first, but afterwards, almost by reflex, flick out a "peace" sign. Well, I didn't give them enough time here.

Yeah, you can understand "video". The boy with the hands in his pockets, walking away like I was going to scold him, is Kento. He's an avid basketball player, and has the personality for it, too. Pretty hostile towards me the first week, going as far as throwing volleyballs after me in the gym lessons (Which I reciprocated by hitting his ball out of his hands continously).

One day, his mobile got taken away (Against the rules to use them in class), and he was in complete despair. I asked him what's wrong, and he told me he wouldn't be able to contact his girlfriend over the weekend now (I've seen her before, cute girl, but damn, Japanese girls put up with a LOT, it looks like.. oh wait). After that, he's been acting really friendly, and likes to talk to me about his girlfriend for some reason, haha - It's like the time with Omy and the LoZ music.

Eeh, moving on. "Maruta" is the guy I.. was talking to. "Not now, not now, man. I'm really sleepy." The students very often sleep in class, btw.
Next guy, at the table. "Yuusuke.. Working with all he got at- *bites tongue*"
Next guy, Agou. He's really shy, always avoids my camera, lol. I always have it in my shirt pocket you see, ready to flip out and shoot someone. SHANK

Stuff on the blackboard is Japanese History.
Around 55 sec, pause! Girls. Yeah, 28 of the 40 students in my class are girls. I'm on very good terms with ALL of the guys (I notice some of them seem rather dismissive in the video), make no mistake. I've yet to have a proper conversation with .. around 14 girls in the class. I have this little book with pictures, name, info and various data on every person in my class, so I don't forget who they are.

There're 1000 students in this school, it's hard work remembering! Back to the 55 sec-ish. The girl going "Uwah" because she almost bumped into another girl; Yuka, she's in the chorus club too, nice girl.

Camera turns to the right... STOP, 56 secs, short hair, dark skin. Manami-chan. Dreamy eyes, lovely smile. Damn hard to approach though, but I'm working on it.

People walking out of the class.. "Who is it?" "Hm?" "Who are you taking pictures of?" "Who? Oh, nonono, video. I want to show the school.. to.. my.. home.. *Crushed by oncoming students*"
Hum hum, walking outside.. Yeah, the school is made up of several buildings, one for classrooms, one for teachers/misc, a gym hall, sports class building, and friggin' HUGE outside 'sport areas' for football, tennis, running and baseball.

Up the stairs.. Yeah, girls here have really damn long skirts, AND they wear shorts underneath. Pf.
I greet EVERYONE I make eyecontact with with a smile, bow, and "Hello". My image at school is simply superb. Bwahahaha.

Err, okay, lessee. After I turn right at the red box-thing, 3 guys. Leftmost, senpai (Upperclassman, even though I'm the same age of my upperclassmen, but I'm in the second year, but is technically a first-year at the school) who is also in the chorus club. Really really nice guy. He's the one hiding his face like some criminal caught on camera in the next few seconds.

In the middle, Yoshida. Bigass guy, but very shy and quiet. He can answer anything with a nod, and you'll still get his point.

Guy entering the room, Kawauchi. He was the one asking who I were taking pictures of before. In the back, a teacher, not sure who though.
Oh yeah, in my class, there're 3 groups of boys. The "cool" boys, the "nerd" boys, and the "sport" boys. I'm part of all of them, but they generally don't talk to each other. Kawauchi is in the "nerd" group.

Oh, and the next bit.. Yeah, I think you get the idea of what's going on. They've taken to call me "tosatsu-yatsu" (Literally "illegal photography guy") because I always snap pictures of people in school, haha.

Yeah, I put up some pictures to counter the wall of text. Lemme round them up from top-to-bottom:

Some girls I hardly knew at the time I took the picture, me, smug look, maccha, a kind of green tea, acquired taste though, and candy on the side, a crane, some boys from my class, the "cool" group who I always eat lunch with.
Upper left, Kento (Part of the "sport" group though, he was the guy with the hands in his pockets in the video), right of him, Shiragami (Also sport group), lower left, Yuusuke, he sits next to me in class, right of him, Hata, friendly guy, apparently has 5 girlfriends. Right of him, Maruta, guy you saw in video, next to him, Yuuji, who is the biggest pervert I have ever met. Also, he fell asleep in the last lesson today, and was snoring loudly. Was very amusing, the teacher was there too, even.

Next picture, Izumo Taisha. The prefecture I live in is called Shimane, major city is Matsue, my city is called Izumo, which is home to many legends and famous shrines and places, popular in Japanese history and mythology. Big rope, huh? If you throw a coin into it and it sticks, it's good luck.

And last, but not least, some of our friends. When I say "our", I'm referring to me and the girl next to me, Vannarin, AKA Nyuu. She's the other exchange student here in Izumo, and is from Thailand (Woo!). Her English is -great- for a Thai, and we often go out somewhere just so we can have a proper English conversation with someone.
We look too much like a couple when shopping together though, makes it hard to pick up girls, bleh. Ah well, she's a good girl.
The three others in the picture are, from left, Kaori, Kentarou and Sugar, AKA Satou. We met them at a welcome party for us back in March.

FUN FACT!: EVERYONE was scared of the me in the "AFS exchange students coming to Japan" papers. It had a picture from my graduation day thang back in school, last year, where I had my brother Alexander shave my head, so I looked like some delinquent. I also gave the camera a pretty nasty look, to add on top.
But hey ho! The dreaded yankee from Denmark was actually an extremely handsome, tall, friendly, and well-spoken young man! Plus, his Japanese is epic. And he can literally -trip- bypassing girls on the corridor with a tactical stare and some pulling of the cheek-muscles.

Next Tuesday I'm going to meet the mayor of the city, so I'll be in the newspapers, or maybe even TV, don't know for sure yet. I was actually interviewed by a newschannel in the dune place picture on the right, they wanted to know where I was from. I missed the actual report though, tch.

Final note, I'm taking requests of what I should take more pictures of. PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT, and I'm already working on the panties thing, taisa. j/k

Trivia
-I'm the oldest in my class.
-I am not the tallest guy around, but still quite above average. (175cm)
-All boys are closed otakus, i.e. watch anime and read manga.
-The exchange student before me, a guy named Miles from Germany, didn't manage to get a girlfriend during his year. I feel sorry for him. ;-;
-You can tell what year a student is in by their slippers, which we must wear while inside school grounds at all times. Boys: 1st year; lightblue. 2nd year; dark blue. 3rd year; brown. Girls: 1st year; purple. 2nd year; red. 3rd year; pink. I got my shoes that a graduated student left behind - the color is turqoise-y, and looks very much like the 1st years'. That was, until I wanted to be special, and got my hands on a black marker.
-I don't have any siblings at my homestay family.
-There are raccoons, wild cats, giant centipedes, cockroaches and many, many other nasty things living here. The house is right at the foot of the mountains.
-The wind here in Izumo is legendary.
-My nicknames include Malfoy, Harry Potter, tosatsu yatsu (Illegal photography guy), Kushami (Sneeze), Fuusuke, Fuutarou, Fuumaru, Mike (Previous exchange student was named Miles, think someone got something messed up here), and hagane no egao (Fullmetal/Steel smile).

P.S.: I picked up a recorder flute today at the local instrument shop, because the piano in this house is half-dead. It's pretty fun, and fairly simple to play, but it's a bother to hold. Expect videos in the future!

Finaru

2008-10-23T00:51:00.000-07:00

lol

I descend upon you once more! My black halo of hair is now 4 cm thicker. Behold! What I am going to bring back home. Some of it are gifts, some of it is for me. I bought the two big mechas today - I could just feel in my fingers I had to construct something when I got home. I picked up the Shin Musha Gundam first, since it was so cool, and then I saw they sold these "action stands" for Gundam (only, bleh) models.

You could give them flying poses, kicking, punching and other cool things, so I wanted an opponent for my ninja robot. More like samurai mobile suit, yeah.

We already have a Kämpfer, but this thing costs 2940 yen! Seriously, what is that.

My brother built one a loooong time ago when he bought it in Thailand, but over time, parts have disappeared as well as some of its limbs. I'm much, much better at keeping track of my things. I think.

The samurai Gundam is the good one, and the blue is the bad one, fyi.

They had a red "Sazabi" model, bad, but red+red wasn't very cool, and it was much more expensive. I'd liked to buy some of the other Gundam models with guns and stuff, but I already had the samurai and.. meh.

I am going to translate the manga I have bought, so that people other than me and those who understand Japanese can read them. Buuut, which series first? I have no idea, honestly.

Maybe To LOVE-Ru, but it's a bit too naughty. Tee hee. I'm so naughty. wtf sekirei is much worse

I kind of want my brother to decide for me though, as he might want to read some of it. oriduno.

I kind of bought a lot though.

Leaving Japan soon - this is what I will miss the most!

2008-10-21T04:19:00.000-07:00

1 Nature - the mountains in particular. Japan has a more diversified nature that any country I have ever visited.
2 The politeness of the Japanese people. There seems to be a code of conduct for most interactions - supplying a nice and friendly atmosphere in most situations.
3 FOOD: From the ramen dishes so much liked by Frederic (and me), to fish in all its cooked and uncooked forms. I should not forget to mention seaweed - in its equally many taste appearances.
4 The differences in culture and history - so much more to learn.

I am leaving Japan with a desire to learn and understand more. I will build a a book and movie collection, return on many visits - and maybe one day - work a bit more on the language :-).

In addition to having had a wonderful experience with Frederic, this trip has truly opened new doors in my understanding of history, religion and human nature.

The Southernmost Point of Japan: HATERUMA-JIMA

2008-10-18T16:13:00.000-07:00

The guidebook had warned that Hateruma-Jima had nothing much to offer.

The guidebook is wrong.

The southernmost point of Japan has exactly that "end-of-the-world" feeling to it, that makes it an adventure to visit.

True, the rest of the island is mostly sugarcane fields - but the south coast is made of barren volcanic cliffs constantly hammered by ferocious waves. The cliffs, however, stand firm - and the fields are well protected.

Thus, Hateruma-Jima becomes to me a symbol of how Japan has been able to protect its culture from foreign influences.

On our 3500 km travels from Soya Misaki in the north to Hateruma-Jima in the south, we have come to love the people and nature of Japan. We know that we have only scratched the surface of the culture, but everywhere we have been allowed to peak through, we have discovered a sophisticated and self contained culture and philosophical basis very different from our own.

I am sure that one reason for the great difference is that christianity has not had much influence here. After initial missionary work by Portuguese and Spainards in the 14-15th century, christianity was outlawed for 300 years - and today only 1% of japanese are christians. Thus the philosophy inherent in christianity has not affected japanese thinking very much.

Another reason is the richness of Japan: the islands have been able to feed a very large population - and it has been self sufficient in almost all areas - limiting trade mainly to luxuries. The large population has enabled cultural growth.

Today, Japan is obviously interacting more and more with the rest of the world. But it will remain a jewel of uniqueness to the visitor for a long time. The jewel is encased in an oyster shell and somewhat difficult to open - but worth the effort.

Iriomote - Jungle Island

2008-10-17T18:14:00.000-07:00

We got up very early and got on the boat to Iriomote - our second last stop.

Iriomote is very different from the other islands we have visited.

90% of the mountaneous island is covered by dense jungle. The rivershores a mesh of wild mangrove forest. Definitely a treasure island.

Apparently not mapped until a hundred years ago - and until mid 1900 very unwelcoming due to malaria.

But 2008 is different.

We decided to sail up the river and then trek up to some famous waterfalls. A hot but satisfying trip.

Later, we enjoyed probably the best of our lodgings in Okinawa - beautiful view and peace and quiet.

Shiisa will protect your house

2008-10-16T04:21:00.000-07:00

In Okinawa it has been custom for 500 years to put a small lion-like figure on your roof - to protect your home.

On our trip around Ishigaki, we found an artist who expanded on the idea...

100 KM Further South: ISHIGAKI

2008-10-16T03:49:00.000-07:00

We had a great plan: take advantage of the expensive but early arrival by plane and hit the ground running! We would immediately rent a small car, leave the main city and start exploring the subtropical island.

This plan did not take the weekday into account. It was Friday - and many japanese young travellers had arrived with the same plan. One difference: they had booked their car in advance!

Suffering a bit in the midday heat, visiting all the rental agencies, we found a car which would be ready by 3 pm. Spare time? Frederic spent the time learning how to play the Sanshin - the teacher: a local café owner. Here is a sound example.

I still wonder how Frederic learned to read the music - look at it: does it make any sense?

By 3 pm we were rubber-borne and on our way north to beautiful Kabira Bay.

What? NO FERRY? Are we stuck here?

2008-10-15T19:01:00.000-07:00

The confusion started in the airport, continued in the taxi and finally on the harbour itself it dawned upon us: THERE IS NO FERRY OUT OF HERE!

So carefully planned: we would fly from Okinawa to Miyako Jima - then sail for 5-6 hours to Ishigaki to explore the third group of islands - the YAEYAMA ISLANDS.

But the boats mentioned in the guide book had stopped sailing in April! From now on you can only move sourth by airplane...

You learn from your mistakes.

We paid the 24000 yen for two tickes got on the plane and learned.

Financing Welfare...

2008-10-15T18:40:00.000-07:00

Maintaing a welfare state is costly...

On Miyako-Jima we encountered this simple solution to taxation:

Anyone taller than the stone should pay tax!

MIYAKO JIMA - and a birthday celebration

2008-10-15T17:58:00.000-07:00

Still beautiful weather. The weather gods remain friendly - no typhons...yet.

On 8th of October we moved south again from Okinawa to explore the second group of islands in Okinawa: the Miyako Islands.

Thanks to Star Alliance, we can do some of the island hopping by plane. Star Alliance has a great deal: buy up to five domestic flights for only 100 USD each - but you must purchase before arriving in Japan. Read about it here.

On my birthday 9th of October, we forgot all about our trekking boots, rented a car and circled the island. It turned out that the island has numerous golf resorts as the one in the picture.

We also discovered a surprisingly Disneyland like german themepark complete with a copy of the Marksburg castle in Germany!

How does a small japanese island develop kinship with Germany?

The story: In 1873 the islanders saved sailors from a german ship wrecked by a nasty typhoon. Five years later Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany in appreciation gave a monument to the island - and thus the connection started...

I ended my birthday on the Maehama beach - "by some called the best beach in Japan". (A sentence which we were to encounter on many islands....)

SCUBA diving - a present to my dad

2008-10-09T01:45:00.000-07:00

SCUBA: Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus

Today, Fu-sama brings you:

HORRIBLEand goodTHINGS ABOUT DIVING

Note: I'm not gonna post any bloody pictures or anything, since I don't have any. So you'll have to do with some randomly placed pictures of me in scuba gear, and some fish.

There are a lot of ways to get hurt when diving. And the creatures who live underwater are the least of your concerns.

No, the biggest troublemaker when diving is YOU.

Yeah, I'm looking at you, Joe.

Anyway. Only stupid people get hurt when diving, so that includes you too. Not just you Joe. The people reading this, too.

And how are you stupid? Whoo, I don't have time to list that. Wikipedia exists for a reason. Or just look out your window (Or in the mirror, for that sake). Stupidity is everywhere. And there's no limit to it.

Most diving accidents happen at the surface, sometimes even before you touch the water. You usually survive from these accidents, as they include tripping on the boat, hitting something as you jump in the water, etc.

But underwater, it's different.

So, one million dollar question? Wait, screw that. One million euro question. That's better. Then you can actually afford something.

How are you stupid underwater?

Answerr isss...

You run out of air.

Yeah, facepalm inducing, isn't it? Statistics say that you're more likely to get eaten by a shark than run out of air. And you're more likely to get hit by a car while walking on the sidewalk, than get eaten by a shark. Heck, you could probably compare running out of air to suffocating on the street, becaue you forgot to breathe. I love numbers.

There are various things following running out of air. First of, you panic. Well, most do, but those who don't still have good reason to. Next is, you want air. And you'll probably try to rip out your buddy's regulator in order to get some yourself. BUT, this is where stupidity comes in, because you're not with your buddy!forsomereason

Soo, you want to go where there's air. The surface. So, you swim, up.

Now, there's a lot of ways to continue from here, but I'll take the worst case.

You hold your breath as you swim up with rapid speed.

And now it gets hurtful.

The compressed air you'd breathed in from the tank on your back begins to expand in your lungs, as the pressure around you becomes lower and lower. Your lungs expand towards your ribs, without the slightest feeling of discomfort. Suddenly your lung explodes in multiple places, as the air desperately tries to escape your body. You either instantly die, suffocate to death, is paralyzed from top to toe, or if you're lucky, pass out from the excruciating pain.

Slowly, you'll ascend to the surface, unconscious or dead, where pinkish foam and lung tissue escapes from your mouth and nose in a grotesque manner.

If you survive this, you'll probably never dive again, and maybe even never be able to breathe properly again. And if you ascended too fast, you'll probably have DCS, too, since it was from 18 meters.

This is the most serious accident that can happen when scuba diving. Now, you're probably thinking "OMG thats so crazy, but youll naturally hold your breath when out of air wont you??+". Yes, you will. But both this and DCS (Which I will get to later) can be well explained with a soda bottle.

The air inside a bottle of soda is compressed, to seal the bottle and keep foreign nasty things from entering. When you open it, you relieve the pressure, and bubbles rise in the soda. If there're too many bubbles, you naturally either open it quickly and let out the full pressure, usually resulting in soda all over your hand and the bottle. Or, you slowly open the bottle, little by little relieving the pressure, as it adapts to the pressure outside. If you do this correctly, the bubbles won't even rise, and you won't have soda all over.

So the solution to keep your lungs from exploding is: Relieve pressure as you ascend.

You let out a tiny stream of bubbles from your mouth (Usually humming works) as you swim upwards. This will keep the air pressure inside your lungs stable, as it adapts to the outside pressure.

Now, to DCS. DCS stands for De-Compression Sickness, also known as the 'bends'. This is the 'accident' where you ascend too fast, OR dive at too deep depths, for too long. Nitrogen bubbles form in your blood veins, and if you've exceeded the maximum dive time at a specific depth, these bubbles will get larger, and if you're unlucky, they'll enter your arteries, and then your heart, which either kills you or gives you a stroke. They can also enter your brain, and the result will probably be even nastier.

This is called AGE, Arterial Gas Embolism.

I'm not going to go completely into detail how it works, but it's the same as the soda bottle concept.

After each dive, you will have a slight amount of bubbles in your body, and you'll be fizzing like a coke for a few hours after you resurface. This is not serious at all.

However, if you do dive too much and get DCS, you'll experience pain in your joints, which can be reduced by bending the joint to a more comfortable position. This is often found in the back or the shoulders, resulting in people bending forwards to relieve the pain. This is why it's called the 'bends'.

Other symptoms include confusion, memory loss, blurred vision, extreme fatigue, burning sensation, twitching, shortness of breath, dry constant cough, swollen skin, and many other nasty things.

So, how do you avoid it? First of all, keep a schedule of your dives. This is simpler than it sounds, but not very interesting to read about. In short: Know how long you dived for, maximum depth, water temperature, etc.

Second, always ascend slowly. No more than 9m/minute. This is about as fast as tiny bubbles ascend. If you've doven to more than 16ish meters, make sure to make a precautionary decompression stop at 5 meters, for 5 minutes.

If you do get DCS, you'll be put in a decompression chamber for a day or two, where the pressure inside is lowered to 15 meters or so.

Yeah, pressure is some really nasty stuff.

Oh right, the good things about diving? Uhmm.

It's like flying underwater.

Happy birthday, dad. (He asked for it himself!)

-Fu

A Visit to the Ryukyu Kingdom

2008-10-07T17:30:00.000-07:00

I read it without understanding. Now I know and feel it: There is an old and new Japan.

The six central regions ooze of a thousand year old culture. The newer parts much less.

The map of Japan is becoming clearer: I realise how our trip from the very north to the very south of Japan, starts and finishes in the newest parts which have only been japanese for 150 years.

HOKKAIDO in the north was included in 1868 and the RYUKYU KINGDOM in the south became a japanese prefecture in 1879.

The many small Ryukyu islands were a separate nation - balancing for 500 years between chinese and japanese influences - and allowing for profitable trade in and out of Japan (otherwise quite closed during this period when trade only trickled through Nagasaki.)

It would probably have been no problem for the rulers in Japan and China to take over Ryukyu much before 1879 - I am guessing they preferred the trade door.

The Ryuku nation was a kingdom - complete with King, Queen and subjects. Today they invest in keeping the history and myths alive - thus I can share with you this priceless video of a reenactment of a dance for the Royal couple.

And a castle with golden throne rooms. As is the custom in Japan where everything is built of wood, this castle burned down many times during history - finally courtesy of the Americans during the Battle of Okinawa. Behold however how beautifully it has been rebuilt in the 1990s and now provide enjoyment to visitors to Okinawa.

To complete the kingdom attributes, I share with you the fearful dragon that will eat anyone not paying taxes. Unfortunately a tax evader seemed to be among the visitors that day.

Our route through the Kingdom includes 5-6 islands: First, the main island - Okinawa Honto - with the castle Shurijo above - and where Frederic got his diving certificate. secondly, Zamami (one of the Kerama Islands off Okinawa), thirdly, Miyako Jima where I will spend my birthday touring the entire (!) island, fourthly, Ishigaki, and then either Iriomote and/or our goal: Hateruma Jima.

Zamami - Kerama Islands...

2008-10-07T06:16:00.001-07:00

We spent two nights on this delicious island off Okinawa.

Only 1000 inhabitants of whom 700 live in the tiny village near the harbour. The entire economy is dependent upon visiting tourists - in particular divers - and almost every other house in the village is a diving shop or a small place to eat or sleep. The concern of the villagers for their precious natural riches showed in the evening when they got together to clean the beach so that it would be equally attractive tomorrow.

Otherwise the experience in general is not very different from that of say beaches in Thailand. There is less of a "Japan-ness" here than on the mainland Japan. Temples are fewer and smaller. But the food is still very much Japan - with minor adaptations. Lots of fish and seaweed for breakfast and dinner.

And I am surprised how much I am starting to enjoy it - actually selecting Japanese breakfast even when there is a choice of bread, butter and jam. I feel better after eating the many small dishes which include many raw or lightly cooked vegetables. How to bring this cuisine back home?

On day 73 we met Sine - Our first Danish Encounter

2008-10-07T06:16:00.000-07:00

It was hot a midday when I snorkled around for the underwater corals and fish. Just before sunset when the air had cooled down I went back to get a proper swim. Except for a few locals cleaning up the beach, I was alone until a blond girl entered the water.

When we found out that we were both from Denmark, this is what she said: "I am almost sorry that I met you...I am going home soone - and I have travelled in Japan for 45 days without meeting a single Dane..."

In the evening we chatted all three and Frederic and Sine in particular dived deeply into discussions on Japanese vocaboulary and grammar.

ケーンぢくん。あーそびーましょう。

2008-10-07T03:54:00.000-07:00

Movies - reflections

When we want to escape from the Japan-y Japan, we go watch a movie.
So far, we've watched The Forbidden Kingdom, Hancock, Gake no Ue no Ponyo, Iron Man, Mummy 3 and 20th Century Boys.
If I should list them from best to worst, for a teenager like me, it'd be:

1. Iron Man - Pure tech-superhero awesomeness action-packed movie, and Robert Downey Jr. is one of the best actors I've seen. MUST WATCH FOR GUYS, some girls don't like it. Too much awesomeness maybe.
2. Gake no Ue no Ponyo - Funny, cute, and Hayao Miyazaki. The newest movie from Ghibli Studios, this movie is worth watching no matter your age, and if you're a fan of Miyazaki's movies.
3. 20th Century Boys - IF YOU'VE READ THE MANGA [Click here for all of the manga chapters, readable online, in English. There're 200+ chapters to go if you want to catch up to the movie, though.] If you haven't read the manga, this movie will just be another incomprehensible Japanese thriller you didn't understand in the first place.
I love when manga, comic book superheroes, games, anime or plays are made into movies, and TURN OUT WELL. Some just freakin'...
4. The Forbidden Kingdom - I reviewed this the very first week, but it's a nice movie if you're into kung fu fighting.
5. Mummy 3 - They just had to make a 3 I guess. Oh well, Jet Li ftw.
17. Hancock - Even the name indicates the quality of the movie. I've made a review of it, but don't highlight and read if you want spoilers and/or have something against nowadays Internet language. I.e. read at own risk.

The movie may look interesting and funny from the trailer, but what it does is actually reveal almost _every_ interesting or funny part there is in the movie. Hancock (Will Smith) is a low-life bum living in the streets of New York, and he has super powers, flight, super strength and invulnerability (lol speaking CoX lingo here). And, he's an asshole. Which is mentioned several times during the film.
Since I do not recommend watching this movie, because it sucks beans, I'll spill the plot. Captain Asshole meets another super being like him, who coincidentally is his wife or something, and they duke it out, a bit, and rest is emotional shit. If you have time to waste or just wub Will Smith, it's okay to watch, but it's not even stratching the boot of Iron Man quality.

McDonalds - reflections

"Irasshaimasedouzo!"

Don't know how many times I've heard that now. Guh.
100 yen (5 kr) for a Hamburger, Soft Ice, Apple Pie and 3 other things I can't remember. Woah.
Although after being in Japan a while you learn to REALLY treasure even your 10-yen coins. Those damn ice teas are always 110.

In the corner's an old guy who fell asleep over his newspaper, school girls are coming and going just to use the toilet, the smoking section is 3x the non-smoking section. Japan.
While sitting there it reminded me of Iron Man, where Tony Stark returns to the US after breaking out: "I've been a captive for three months in a cave in Afghanistan, I know what I want, and what I want is a cheeseburger and I want it right now!"
Following scenes show one of his bodyguards carrying around a Burger King paper bag and Tony munching on cheeseburgers. God I love that guy. I wonder if Burger King paid for that scene, or they were asked if they wanted their logo on that bag, or they just picked them and asked afterwards, or whatever.

Toilet - reflections

Definitely not what it used to be.

lulz - reflections

Oh, and to quote a discussion with my older brother Alexander over Skype I had an hour ago:

[Skype] Frederic: kk, i wanna show you something so open our blog
[Skype] Alexander: uh this comp doesnt have net srry
[Skype] Frederic: .........
[Skype] Frederic: you lazy bastich just open the damn blog lol
[Skype] Alexander: aw im just so tired im paintin the house u kno i cba to write
[Skype] Alexander: ok ok there its open now what
[Skype] Frederic: okay, write in 'opaads' in the google search function and find it with the instant-find function thingy
[Skype] Frederic: kk?
[Skype] Frederic: oi
[Skype] Alexander: wat
[Skype] Frederic: you found it?
[Skype] Alexander: hey whats that weird brown shit youre eating in kotoyo or w/e
[Skype] Frederic: jeezus does anyone actually read the damn text
[Skype] Alexander: kk whats this
[Skype] Frederic: i have no idea where ur looking fcolwwww

And something along those lines.

Good things come in small portions!

Now in Okinawa - reflections

2008-10-01T17:36:00.000-07:00

It is early morning, and I am alone in Cats Inn, Chatan, Okinawa. The terrasse overlooks the sea which is calm; across the bay is the American Village - and a large American Air Base is just beyond the bend.

The typhoons which we felt in Kyushu has also been ravaging Okinawa - but now the sun is shining :-)

Frederic was picked up a while ago by Doug from Reef Encounters, where he will take a diving license during the next three days. I wish I had planned to go along - but he appreciates adventures on his own. This is important.

We arrived in Okinawa from Fukuoka yesterday afternoon. The guidebook was right: the island is crowded - and we will soon move on to the smaller islands further south - eventually reaching Hateruma-Jima which is Japan´s southernmost point. Our goal!

Jikogu means "hell" - and it smells really bad!

2008-09-30T16:26:00.000-07:00

Frederic decided to return to the car after just a few minutes. The sulphorous fumes really stink.

Is it dangerous to visit the Fugen-dake vulcano?

In 1990 it suddenly erupted - an avalanche of mud and rocks hit Shimabara town. 43 people were killed and 2000 houses destroyed.

It looks pretty on the picture - but you would not enjoy the smell.

Why visit an island where locals say it rains 35 days per month? YAKUSHIMA

2008-09-27T07:02:00.000-07:00

My camera lens steamed over.

I trekked for five hours with an umbrella, but still got soaking wet.

Yet, Yakushima is worth the effort. The small island has one of the oldest forests in the word – some of its enchanted cedar trees are several thousand years old. These pictures show trees aged 3000 – and had I chosen to start my trek at 4 am (which I did not…) I could have reached the tree aged 7200 years. But I bet it looked the same, and settled for more humane timing.

Frederic and Aya spent the day diving. No pictures – but two sea turtles were spotted.

Sleeping on the side of an active volcano? SAKURAJIMA

2008-09-27T06:57:00.000-07:00

It caused death and destruction less than a century ago. It is still fuming – but I traced no signs of worry – and we decided to stay in a beautiful Ryokan on the side of the Sakurajima itself. OK – once you have looked at the cone a few times, there is not much more to be said – except gape at the lava landscape, which resulted from the last eruption. And then enjoy the excellent onsen right next to the sea.

A new travel companion – Aya Matsura

2008-09-27T06:51:00.001-07:00

As agreed many months ago – Aya flew in from Bangkok and joined us for a week. Aya is Japanese and works as a Development Expert for the ILO and lives in Thailand. She will travel with us – a great opportunity for Frederic in particular to practice his Japanese – and get answers to the many language questions which I cannot help him with.

Aya also introduced us to her brother, Daisuke, who is a helicopter pilot for the Japanese Coast Guard - and he and Frederic spent some time together. The picture shows Daisuke at work - and no - we are not in the picture :-)

Aya came at 10 am to the 90 year old Ryokan where we had spent the night – we immediately went to pick up our rental car and headed south to the active volcano: Sakurajima.

Feasting on the fourth Island - KYUSHU

2008-09-27T06:47:00.000-07:00

We are completing our tour of the four main islands with a week in Kyushu. The island is slightly smaller than Denmark – with 2,5 times the population. The figures are 33.000 km2 and 13 mio. Inhabitants.)

First stop: Fukuoka. A modern city on the north tip – sporting among many other things a “Ramen Stadium” with Frederic´s favourite dish – ramen – served in all its regional specialities. I tell you it was difficult to choose which one to eat that night!

Video dump

2008-09-22T04:30:00.000-07:00

No wonder they named him "Shika"maru.

"Fu! What does the scouter say about the km/h!?"

"IT'S OVER TWO HUNDREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED"

Wait, that's not even that much.. but hey, the music adds atmosphere, eh? iPod ftw.

Now for something different.

You have _NO_ idea how bad that stuff smells. And I SLEPT with it.

A Night in A Capsule Inn

2008-09-20T06:21:00.003-07:00

We could have gone to the north in one go – but decided to stopover in Tokyo and try a Capsule Inn in Akihabara.

I was not too excited about this. I agreed that we should try – I have always felt sorry for these poor Japanese homeless who had nowhere else to stay than in a capsule, I ought to see with my own eyes. But what about claustrophobia – and would it be safe and clean and…? Frederic actually liked it – as he may write elsewhere in our blog – personally, I would only go back if no other accommodation was available – or – if someone opened a brand new facility. The basic idea of the capsule is not bad.

We arrived around 1800. First impression is that the place looks better on the internet than in reality. It is not worn out - but certainly worn. The “lounge area” on the ground floor is extremely small – 30-40 m2 – but still has room for 100 shoe lockers, small reception, luggage shelves, four PC stations, smokers corner (…). But the whole thing is tight – tight. Second floor is men´s wash room – quite nice with 5-6 showers and a fairly large hot bath for 2-3 people. Floor 3-10 are capsule floors. The last three floors are women only.

On each capsule floor, there are approximately 30 capsules stacked in two layers – and reasonable large shared toilet facilities. Your personal capsule is 2 meters log, 1 meter wide and 1 meter high. It comes with 2 fresh towels, bed linen, 2 tooth brushes, a nice mattress, blanket, pillow (filled with pellets?), adjustable bright light, air condition, television, radio, clock and alarm. Missing – and revealing the age of its construction (probably 1990) - is an electrical outlet to recharge telephone or PC – but there is free wireless – in addition to the free internet PCs on the ground floor. You also get a ridiculous small luggage locker, but the capsule is actually big enough that we could store our backpacks there.

How was the night? Our floor was about half full. 10-15 people. Except us all were Japanese. Everybody behaved very quietly, and I slept quite all right (using earplugs) – though the rumbling of trains over- and underground made the cubicle resonate in very deep sounds. I noticed but still slept. Getting up and out in the morning was extremely easy. You hardly unpack – so packing is no challenge.

Escaping the hurricane

2008-09-20T06:19:00.000-07:00

We decided to flee.

On TV and internet we could see a hurricane approaching. It would hit southern Tohoku including Osaka around Thursday the 18th of September – the day we had planned to enjoy the holy mountain Koya-san. The prospect was instead to end up either extremely wet or extremely bored.

The escape plan called for a 1500 km detour up to the north of Japan – to Ozore-san- the “Hellish mountain” - which we had skipped in August when we wanted to reach the Sado Island in time for the Kodo Earth Celebration Festival. Such a detour sounds impossible price- and timewise. But not in Japan. The cost was handled by using our JR Rail Pass which allows free train travel. The time issue meant travelling by Shinkansen. It would be the first time on this trip.

First trip with Shinkansen! Thoughts...

2008-09-18T06:02:00.001-07:00

Until now we have travelled slowly - but today we had our first Shinkansen experience: up to 300 km per hour I believe. Only in a plane have I experienced this speed before. Though very efficient, and nice when you look at mountains at a distance, I find that the closeness of japanese houses to the train tracks makes you feel that the high speed is slightly hazardous. Or maybe it just my age...

But let it be clear: I am very impressed with this countrywide network of high speed trains. Large posters at the station explain, that the CO2 footprint per km travelled is only 10% of a trip by air.

He returns.

2008-09-17T06:02:00.000-07:00

And he's got INTRSTING STUFFS.

Yes, STUFFS that's relevant to your INTRSTS. (And yes, I missspell on purpose. Period.)

Guys, this is totally me. Except I was behind and she was infront.. err.. I mean, she was riding... uhhh.... THIS IS NOT THE INNUENDO YOU ARE LOOKING FOR!

Yeah, I was totally an anime character yesterday. Yesterday as of Wednesday 17th of September, i.e. yesterday being Tuesday. Wakatta?

I'm not really sure where to start, but here's another picture.
Left, Ryo-kun (Or is it Lyo? Same sound.), right, Sakura-chan. I didn't call her that, though, since she preferred to speak English.

I'm going to do "Weeks-in-review" from now on, as writing EACH AND EVERY DAY IS FREAKIN' TIRING. I hate schedules.

Meh, it's a diary nonetheless, but I really cba.

I probably won't get to the Kyoto week by the time I write this, it's already 23, but this was probably my nicest experience in Japan so far, so I'd like to start with this.

We've been in Kyoto for the longest period of time we've been at the same place... Sake is hindering my grammar a bit, but you get my point.

Reason for that is, we, despite a crappy hostel, extended the stay with like.. 3 days? We met a lot of nice people at the last day(s), so we decided to stay a bit longer. Yeah.

It started with my dad telling me about a girl and her mother who'd pulled his shirt when he was at the Golden Pavillion, and she wanted to practice her English, since she was going to be an exchange student in Canada, much like I'm doing. He told me they'd talked and he'd told them about me, so they had invited us over for tea at their house at 8 pm.

I don't feel like ranting right now since I'm listening to some soothing music, but my dad messed up somewhere and we were 30 minutes late.

So instead, they called us and told us to meet them at a JR station with the taxi. The yearly harvest moon was up, so we were going otsukimi (Moon viewing) at a pond in the outskirts of northern Kyoto.

I was in a kind of bad mood when I left the hostel due to various circumstances, but this cute young Japanese girl on 16 who can _actually speak English_, and well, brightened my evening a bit more.

Although it was pitch-black at the pond, we talked and had a nice time. I have a picture of the moon and the pond but it's.. yeah, see for yourself.

It was really, really nice to finally speak to someone my own age, and Japanese, too.

The day after the next day, I met up with her again at the Golden Pavillion, and she took me to her school. Since she was going to Canada, she didn't go to her school anymore, but she's technically a 2nd year High Schooler.

It was big. Like, de-KKAI big. 4x Klostermarken back in Denmark, no wonder they had space for 1000-2000 students.

We went to the room where the music club was after school, and she introduced me to the school band. During the first weeks of Japan, I thought the generation of High Schoolers I was going to meet at my age would be the 185cm tall guys I saw on the street. But these guys were max my mom's height. I finally felt like the hawt, tall, awesome ryugakusei I was supposed to be, or going to be.

All of the students of the school were _really_ friendly, or shy. I tried to look those who exited the classrooms in the eyes when they went towards the stairs, past me, but they either had fixated their sight at the end of the hall or at my feet. Only those who stopped to greet Sakura would say hi to me. Am I really that scary? Chikushou.

Ah, here they are. The tall, new generation of Japanese guys. 3 of them. What. 3? That's.. it? But there're 40 students in this class.. holy smokes! This is like Negima! DO WANT!

Sakura approached them and introduced me to them, I don't remember the other two, but they didn't want to try and converse (In English) too much. Ryo-kun was there, and he went along with us for the rest of the time.

We had some aburi-mochi (Grilled mochi which is dipped in soy sauce, really tasty), but it was hella expensive, 500 yen a plate. But, as the rich ryukagusei I am, I paid.

We headed back towards the school as Sakura had to get her bike, and sayonara'd Ryo-kun. I'll probably never see him again. Unless! I end up in Kyoto. Hoo, that'd be win. tbh.

We were quite a bit from her house, so she told me to get on the back of her bike. Okay, can't hurt.. WRONG, can't kill.. WRONG, hey, I get a nice experience out of it? Pin-pan.

It was.. weird. I felt truly like a character from an anime. Sitting on the back of a bike, cute Japanese girl in front, riding next to the train tracks, beautiful red evening sky, the occasional car passing by..

It was so surreal, just sitting there, being lost in the moment, not noticing the loss of blood in my right leg. I'd always *hoped* Japan would be like what's portrayed in anime as the otaku I am, but ofcourse, as a normal human being born with logical sense, I waved that off. I think only one word could describe that moment - しあわせ。

But, the inspiration for anime has to come from somewhere. So this shit really happens sometimes guys! Holy crud! And I was in it! I can totally see myself being designed right now by CLAMP as Fudouche Pamperhuge from Code DESU: Fudouche of the Congestion. Oh hells yes. wait, wat.

At her home, they served me dinner, and we played different pieces of music for each other, me on the piano, and her on the flute. Haha, been a few months since I played the AIR intro song to the end, but it's still in my hands.

I really hope I can meet her and Ryo-kun again in the future, or at least someone like them. They are exactly the reason I want to see more of Japan's high school life.

Anyhow, I've heard rumours that I have been missed, so I shall grace you once again with my divine prescence, but for now, do with this, please. It's late, and I have to get up early (Again) tomorrow.

Fu-kun

P.S.: Yeah, I didn't publish this post the same time as I wrote it. The Shinkansen trip cut me off from the Internet for a while.

Kyoty - a Fantastic Week

2008-09-16T04:31:00.000-07:00

Frederic at the Golden Pavillion - but I did not take the picture...

It is 20.30 on our last night in Kyoto.

I have spent the day visiting both the Golden Pavilion (Kinkakuji) and the Silver Pavilion (Ginakuji) - and doing the Philosphers´Walk. However, I have been alone, because Frederic has been busy. Of course I want him to meet as many Japanese as possible, but it has been a bit of a lonely day.

During this week, Frederic first spent a day sightseeing with Tamar, whom he met in Shiretoko and who lives here. He then spend two days with Marina from Furuoka, and yesterday and today he has spent time with Sakura (which means cherryblossom), who is 16 and herself going to be an exchange student in Canada from November! Obviously, the two communicate very well - and I can see that they have enjoyed each others company.

But the morning runs in KYOTO were special. Frederic loves to sleep in, and I need to get out!

Only top hotels offer fitness centers, and our budget does not allow for that. So – I am always on the lookout for an alternative to exercise on busy and polluted streets. In Kyoto I found a wonderful alternative: the river bed! I descended the 10-15 meters on one of the many staircases to the 70-100 meter wide river bed, and either biked or ran along the paved path under countless bridges from the train station to the mountains slightly uphill all the way. You remain surrounded by city all the way – but you can hardly hear the traffic.
In September the river bed was extremely green and lush – with long legged white cranes wading through the low slow moving river.

This is what I also met on my trips:
- An eagle (!) sitting in the middle of the river bed;
- an older man exercising his voice under another bridge – not singing or shouting – but some other form of deep and strong voice exercise I have never heard before;
- an excellent saxophone player practicing a wide repertoire;
- a few homeless men in cardboard box makeshift dwellings under bridges, and
- a lady walking her pig. The pig did not enjoy the exercise and she was busy pulling, pushing and persuading. I was running, sweating and – enjoying.

Reflections on religion - Shinto

2008-09-13T20:13:00.000-07:00

Frederic is sightseing in Kyoto today with Marina from Fukuoka. More about her later...

I will use the time to share reflections on the japanese religion Shinto.

Please comment on this article…!

On this trip we have visited numerous beautiful temples and shrines – said many prayers (why not?) – and bought quite a few amulets (see display in the picture) for health and happiness. We are tourists – but 98% of the visitors to these shrines are Japanese. Naturally, I have started reflecting on religion in Japan.

Before venturing into this topic, I have to declare my ignorance and humility. My sources are the web, guidebooks, people I meet, the temples I have visitied - and an audiobook on Shinto which I downloaded (satisfyingly read by Ben Kingsley - recommended.): Shinto & Japanese New Religions.

REFLECTIONS:
============
First surprise: Shinto - here is a religion which is important to 80 million people – but unknown to me. How can I be so uninformed? This is a typical example of the richness of this insular culture to a traveller: the differences are not miniscule with what you know already - they are huge.

Second surprise: Shinto - here is religion which is pagan and polytheistic (ten thousand Gods or more - and not all kind!,). I learned in school that such a religion is primitive – but here it commands respect in a highly developed society - and plays a healthy role in peoples life (see argument below). Obviously, my childhood learning is incorrect. Here is a picture that comes to mind: Big religions, countries and big companies have big bosses (Catholicism/Pope, USA/Bush, Microsoft/Gates). But that does not mean that big is the only answer. Small is beautiful?

Third surprise: Shinto - the history of Shinto is a history of Japan. Notice these nuggets:
1 - Did not have a name until 500 DC when Buddhism arrived in Japan after a 1000 year trip from India. The term Shinto was coined to distinguish between the old and the new religion.
2 - Co-existed nicely with Buddhism for centuries
3 - Was not pressured too much by Christianity which was simply banned for 300 years from around 1612 - 1873! (only 1% of Japanese are Christians today).
4 - Was separated from Buddhist influences during the period 1868-1945 when Shinto was made a state religion
5 - Was separated in 1945 from the state by the American occupation in 1945 - and the Ministry of Religious Affairs changed into the Association of Shinto Shrines.

Why do I say that Shinto seems to play a healthy role?
I have three observations:
1 - Visiting a shrine (there are more than 80.000) gives you a healthy break: whether big or small, each shrine is a sanctuary of peace - with trees, shade and often water. Not bad in a busy life.
2 - Some shrines require you to exercise! Temples in the mountains often require fairly arduous climbs up many stairs. Is this one explanation for the long lifespan here? Not much exercise in visiting a Christian church.
3 - At each temple you rinse your hands and mouth - and make a short prayer. Research starts to indicate that prayers work – I will not judge on whether this is because they are heard – or just because they are stated. To support the latter argument: Management thinking highlights that being absolutely clear on your top most goals, is a requirement for reaching them. If you practise Shinto it seems to me that you constantly have to express your goals/prayers.

In conclusion – I have quite come to like Shinto – which I am told means “the way of the Gods” – and the purpose of which is to live in harmony with the Gods.

More on Shinto.

Visit to Nara

2008-09-12T22:20:00.001-07:00

A gorgeous temple - photo from the outside - and video from inside.

Kyoto - full of tourists. No Danes?

2008-09-12T18:12:00.001-07:00

We have arrived in wonderful Kyoto - with all the temples and all the tourists. Staying at Ks House - which is packed - there is lots of opportunity to share experiences.

I had expected to meet at least some Danes. But no. Since we arrived in Japan 50 days ago, we have met one Norwegian, two finns and a few Swedes.

But Kyoto overwhelms you: too much to see. A fabulous modern train station - and century old temples in laquer and gold.

Omi-Maiko - a swim and a lesson: the Japanese holidays are over!

2008-09-12T18:11:00.006-07:00

It is so hot! Where can we swim?

On the west side of Japan´s largest fresh water lake - Biwa-ko - is the small town and beach Omi-Maiko. We arrived in early afternoon.

The beach and the water was lovely, but all hotels and restaurants were closed! The Japanese holidays are over. We did not expect the closure to be so complete, because the weather is still very hot.

But we found a very small restaurant open - and the nice owners helped us find lodging for the night.

Kanazawa

2008-09-12T18:11:00.005-07:00

The guidebooks say: do not skip Kanazawa.

What is here? Well, another fabulous train station (wait till you see Kyoto though - that takes the price).

And a fabulous museum - the Kanazawa 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art. If you click on the link you will see one of the exhibits which can make an art museum fun to visit!

And a (another) famous japanese garden - Kenrokuen. But this one is one of the three most famous and beautiful, they say.

And living geisha in geisha city quarters - and memories of samurai in samurai city quarters.

And many small bars and restaurants that seem as they have looked the same for 300 years.

Again I have this very strong feeling of the future and the past living concurrently in Japan.

Over the mountains

2008-09-12T18:11:00.003-07:00

Why take the easy route from Hakuba to Kanazawa? Three hours by train through the low-land - or 8 hours over the mountain range? Train, cable car, bus, cable car, tunnels, walk across a 186 meter tall dam, finally reaching one of Japan´s tallest mountain tops. The air reeked so badly of sulphur from the active volcanoes underground, that we decided not to spend the night - but return to sea level :-)

Nagano

2008-09-12T18:11:00.001-07:00

Matsumoto

2008-09-12T18:10:00.000-07:00

Thank you Tonami-san

2008-09-08T03:34:00.000-07:00

On Thursday 4th of September it was time to say goodbye to Tonami-san. It is early morning and he is ready to board the bus for a 4,5 hour drive to Tokyo - but before he left, we were invited to have dinner at his house in Tokyo at the end of October.

After saying goodbye, I again borrowed a mountain-bike from the hotel. I wish I had a mountain at home.

Cosy or scary?

2008-09-08T03:32:00.001-07:00

This house was across the street from our lodging in Hakuba.

Frederic took the pictures one minute apart!

And we made new friends again

2008-09-08T03:24:00.000-07:00

Lots of good local advice and insight was received from new friends - David and his wife - and two wonderful children. This picture is from the very special organic French/Italian/Japanese restaurant "Gravity Worx".

Kayaking in Hakuba - less frigthening than canyoning

2008-09-08T03:19:00.000-07:00

We spent an afternoon on a beautiful lake in kayaks.

A first for Tonami-san - but just as with canyoning, he was immediately an expert.

Learning How to Cook Okonomiyaki

2008-09-05T16:57:00.000-07:00

Our good friend Tonami-san joined us for a few days in Hakubu. He taught Frederic some japanese and how to cook Okonomiyaki. The video shows whether Frederic manages the final production stage....

We survived the canyoning!

2008-09-05T03:27:00.000-07:00

It was water from everywhere at once. To top things off: it started raining :-)

opaads

2008-09-02T20:14:00.000-07:00

o hai thar kids

This is Fu speaking!

Remember, sometimes, my dad writes posts, and sometimes I do. We take turns, and he's always the one who makes those short posts, while I do the diary entries. Yes, I know, I'm a bit behind, I've never been good with regular schedules, especially if I have to keep them up by myself.

So, me =/= my dad. Remember that. I'm the funny one.

Anyway, we're going canyoning in 10 minutes, so I don't have time to write a lot. Oh, and try say that. Canyoning. Can-yon-ing. My dad can't say it properly, "canoehen". wtf

And now for the best picture of the whole trip.

Isn't he adorable?? That's my dog, Huan, he's 1 year and 4 months old, Shih Tzu (Pronounced "sher 'dz") race, "chrysanthemum dog", or "imperial lion dog", Chinese. My mom finally got her computer and webcam fixed, which had been 'broken' since we left. Jeeze, we leave for a few days and what happens..
He's what makes me go through this trip, he's what I have to look forward to when I come home.

If you look in the corner, you can see me taking the picture. My mother had put me on fullscreen, and pulled the headphones' plug out, so he could both hear and see me. Ofcourse, he was a bit confused, but he was clearly looking at me. Here's another picture.

Hm, now that I'm at it..

On the left: Moar manga. I have to keep myself occupied with something, ya know? Although I downloaded Ragnarok Battle Offline on our laptop..
On the right: Charms! Sorry about you having to twist your head a bit to look at them.

Red Bag Charm of the Heart: +Health
Blue Bag Charm of Attraction: +Increase to relationship
Soaring Dragon Bag Charm of Victory: +Chance for Victory
Fated Threads Bag Charm of Daijuku Bosatsu Shinnyokai-Shonin: +Health (Exceptional)

Talisman of Warding: +Protection to Evil Spirits
Coin of Lu Yan: +Chance to Coin drops
Bag Charm of Yotsuba: +Luck
Gate Bag Charm of Fate: +Chance of clearing exams

Warding Plaque of the Three Mountains: +Protection to Evil Spirits

Oh, and I made the names up, but the effects are true.

Today´s program - CANYONING...

2008-09-02T19:39:00.000-07:00

Will we be braking bones - or having fun?

Visit our host here: http://www.evergreen-hakuba.com/tours/canyon.html

Hakuba - the "Japanese Alps..."

2008-09-02T04:39:00.000-07:00

Late Sunday we arrived in Hakuba - and the place definitely has reminiscences of the French Alps. We had prebooked Ks House (the same hostel chain as in Fuji). And the quality was again sky high. It was like coming home.

The red-roofed hotel is just across from our hostel.

At Turtle Inn in Nikko: this is Frederic´s favourite activity

2008-08-30T00:59:00.001-07:00

NIKKO - the big and small

2008-08-30T00:51:00.004-07:00

MATSUSHIMA - One of Japan´s 3 most beautiful places ...

2008-08-30T00:51:00.001-07:00

We arrived in the early afternoon - after having crossed Japan from west to east coast. The beauty of the scenery called for a proper lodging. Also, the Youth Hostel was full. Yes, at 39,000 Yen it was a bit expensive - but a ten course dinner and and breakfast was included - a private onsen bath - and a corner tatami bedroom with panomaric views of the islands. Who can remember the crowded youth hostels?

We can upload pictures again :-)

2008-08-30T00:48:00.000-07:00

For several days we have had trouble uploading pictures. Now everything works smoothly again. For how long?

DEWA-SAN: Birth - Death - Rebirth - in 3 days

2008-08-29T07:00:00.000-07:00

The priest spoke very slowly. Every two minutes he asked Frederic to translate for me. It was a tale - not only about the red-clothed skeleton munk sitting right in front of us - but about how Dewa-san had been a one of the most holy places in Japan for centuries.

On the first day, we climbed the 2440 steps to the top of the mountain of birth: Hagura-san. On the second day we reached Sansan at 1980 meters - the mountain of death. But would we make it to the third top: rebirth at Yodo-san?

A terrible thunderstorm was approaching, and miraculously the rain had stopped just long enough for us to visit the small Dainichibou temple - with the now mummified Daijuku Bosatsu Shinnyokai Shonin. He was sitting right in front of us - draped in a beatifully red cloth. And the Shinto priest told Frederic all about the life he had lived before he died in 1782. How he worked for buddhism, helped the townspeople, lived himself only on nuts and garlic, and finally at the age of 96 - had stopped eating altogether - and let himself be buried alive - breathing through a straw till he died.

Frederic finally received a small gift: a charm containing a bit of the mummy`s clothing (they change him now and then and produce health charms from the cloth). We donated 1000 Yen to the temple. Then we ventured back out into the rain - and went in search of a place to spend the night - the thunder was getting very close indeed.

We must find a place to sleep in this area.

We cannot leave Dewa-san without visitíng the mountain of rebirth first.

Pictures from Sado

2008-08-29T02:11:00.000-07:00

The Youth Hostel was "basic" - but idyllic - on the top of the hill overlooking the Ogi town.

We are off to see the Yamabushi!

2008-08-26T05:42:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow we will head off to the mountains to see the yamabushi. If no more entries appear here - you will know where to look...

By the way, we are having trouble uploading new pictures - hope to resolve this soon.

My Greatest Japanese Surprises

2008-08-25T05:19:00.001-07:00

What has surprised me the most in Japan? Not yet in order of importance, they are:
1. TIME. In two dimensions: Everything is on time! Europe - learn! And: The co-existence of an ancient and ultra-modern culture. That this high-tech robotic-age society co-exists with the still active yamabushi. It seems to me that people in my country, Denmark, are at most 30 years apart. Here, I sense that cohabitation spans centuries.

2. TOILETS. The past-future co-existence is witnessed in the daily choice a traveller is asked to make between "whole-in-the-ground" versus virtually computerized equipment in the restrooms. I am a qualified user of squatter toilets in Africa and Asia - but here I have to learn to to choose the right heating of my toilet seat (sometimes clothed), choose my rinse (male or female anatomy?), accept or decline blow-drying... add to that the option to engage a "noise-box" which will quell those of my body....
3. TRAINING. The Japanese workforce has a higher average educational level than that of Denmark! (let me get back with some statistics on this). It astonishes me in the daily interaction here: in the rural areas, buildings and landscape remind me of Thailand or Indonesia - but the people I meet in the bus work in biotechnology labs - and 9 out of 10 are engineers...
4. TIGHTNESS. If you read this - and you are in a large room or in a garden - treasure it. You cannot imagine how this country - short of space - has managed to reduce everything into minute spaces. Hotel rooms for two at 12 m2? Restaurants catering to 20 people - within... 20 m2? It is done with finesse and high quality - but where can you do your yoga sun salutations if there is never 2,2 meters x 1 meter available floor space? And - I have always believed that creative thinking rlotequires physical space - if this is true - then what happens if everything is in miniature?
5. THOUSANDS OF SMALL DIFFERENCES:
- no tipping: If I leave something for a waiter, he will come running after me: "You forgot your change...". - lots of bowing: and it is contagious - I have begun to bow...
- the almost identical way which staff in restaurants, hotels and shops calculate your price using a handheld calculator and return your change. This must be 100% trained in school. My explanation: Efficiency: Though slightly slower this process produces a 100% correct result in all cases.
- Public shared bathrooms - where 2-4-6-8-20 people can shower simultaneously sitting on small plastic stools - before entering the onsen (hot bath = spa). My explanation: effective space/time utilization.
- Biking takes place on the sidewalk. Even on crowded sidewalks. I still get a small shock when a bicycle suddenly weaves past at surprising speed. My explanation: biking on sidewalks - though hazardous - is still safer than on the narrow streets.
- Feeling for interhuman distance is different. When walking, standing in line, moving up escalators I must be careful when I turn around. Chances are that I may hit/touch the person behind me - because he/she is much closer than I am used to. My explanation: higher population density has resulted in a shorter "safety-distance".
- Shops can be stacked vertically! In Denmark a second floor shop will have no customers. In Japan I find shops stacked vertically on 3,6,9 floors. Clear signs (in japanese) present the options - but apparently japanese have less problems climbing stairs or elevators than we.
- Train stations and their surroundings can be attractive dining, entertainment and shopping areas. Initially, I would always venture away from the train station area to find a good restaurant here. Wrong. Look no further than the surroundings. Lots of choice and quality - and some cities have actually created quite a pleasant atmosphere around the station.

Kudo Rules

2008-08-25T01:57:00.001-07:00

Sado Island: this is where criminals, heretics and those out-of-favour were interred. Today - it is still remote - but nevertheless accessible.

We had three consecutive days of concerts. This was like a micro Roskilde Festival - 2000 people instead of 100.000. Great music. Teiko drums!

Sapporo og Utaro

2008-08-20T06:41:00.001-07:00

Cool city. Also in terms of the weather. More details to follow soon. We have enjoyed three days here - and guess what: bumped right into Tiaré and Elizabeth from Shiretoko.

Tomorrow off to Sado Island and the city Ogi where we will attend the Earth Celebration festival. This should be exiciting...

Shiretoko - national park

2008-08-19T15:03:00.000-07:00

Six hours by train and bus took us to SHIRETOKO.

It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1193/.

We had a great trek to the 1661 peak of Mount Rausu - but it took almost five hours up and three down. Tired is not the word. Coming down however, there were three rotemburu (outdoor "onsen" - hot pools - which were soothing for sore limbs).

Mount Rausu is the highest peak on the picture of the Shiretoko mountain range.

The Youth Hostel was quiet old, but it turned out to be a multiple star restaurant: each night you could choose from several dishes - including a salmon dinner, where the youth hostel owner and expert cook started with a raw salmon in front of our eyes - and served five different salmon dishes over the next two hours!

Old-folk`s home?

2008-08-14T04:48:00.001-07:00

This hostel in Sounkyo, which Frederic says below "looks like an old folks home", has been a pleasant surprise: The manager and his wife are extremely nice! Not only do they serve the best food I have had, they also gave us a private room for three days. Furthermore, they released one of their staff - Satchiko - this morning to trek with Frederic to the top of the mountain - and teach him Japanese!

AND: they have released Satchiko for the next 3 DAYS to travel with us 350 km north to Shiretoko - and be his teacher!

We are off early tomorrow morning!

Across the roof of Hokkaido

2008-08-14T03:53:00.000-07:00

I have brought too little food! I was so busy making sure to catch the 6 am lift going up, that I had skipped breakfast. I have water but how could I forget to pack extra food?

The trek will last until the end of the day. The goal is to get from Kuro-dake mountain top to Asahi-dake, which is the tallest mountain in Hokkaido (2290m). Not nearly as high as Mt. Fuji - and with no oxygen challenge. Just some grizzly bears to beware.

But the food! ? ....

In the end, it worked out. Nice staff at a mountain hut extended extra rations to us - and we had a fabulous trek from Kurodake to Asahidake, the highest mountain and active vulcano in Hokkaido. National Geographic have better photographers than I: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/08/daisetsuzan/yamashita-photography.

Fumoffu!

2008-08-12T06:15:00.000-07:00

SECOND RAID GUYS

OMG FMP REFERENCES FTW

Hisashiburidana~ .. Where to start? Guess... I love melon bread. Yeah. Shana introduced me to it, and it's the nommiest snack around, just look how she's going NOM NOM NOM on that one.

There are good ones, great ones, and bad ones though. The great have a thick, sugary melony crust all around it. The good ones are crusty, but no melon taste left. The bad ones are like putting your teeth into a cheesecake that's exceeded its "best before" date by a few months.
I drooled all over when I got a great one on the way to the hon-ya in Wakkanai.

Week in review! And a long one, at that. I'll put as much heart into this as possible, Youri.

Monday
Headed for Kawaguchiko, we went to Shinjuku station. Got some plane tickets for Wakkanai too, and tried to get lunch, but we only had 10 minutes left, so I had to leave the TASTIEST ramen behind. :(

Somewhat long trip, but got some shots of Tokyo Tower in Roppongi. After a few hours, we stopped at this huuuge hotel, RIGHT next to the WORLD'S BIGGEST ROLLER COASTER, so naturally I went "HOSHITHOSHITHOSHIT", and was about to run off the bus, when I found it this wasn't our stop. We actually got off at the wrong station, but the staff from K's House, our hostel, picked us up as it started raining.
Nice place, 4 computers, 3 toilets and bathrooms. 2 sleeping floors too. We met two Swedish girls who had just arrived after some confusion about getting around. As we were going to get some dinner anyway, we took them with us, them being the first Scandinavians we'd met so far. Got some ramen at a burger/ramen hybrid restaurant, the bamboo shots tasted REALLY bad.

Way home we realized we didn't even know each others names yet, lol. On my dad's Fuji post, Melinda is blonde, My is brunette. Oh, and we all ended up in the same room, where the fan stopped working and Melinda had to deal with it in pitch black darkness.. It's like messing with the toilets here with their numerous buttons.
Tuesday
We were supposed to go to Fuji with Melinda and My today, but after realizing we didn't want to do the night hike, we were too late anyway. So! We went to the roller coaster amusement park a bit from the hostel. Had to take a train though.

Luckily not with this train, if just the exterior of a train is this fucked up, I don't even want to know who's driving it.

Pretty expensive to get in, but that park had the biggest, longest, fastest and most awesome roller coasters I've ever seen.
We try a pizza-slinger thingy, which was pretty fun, but no tickle. Then we got in like for Fujiyama, the world's biggest roller coaster. And then what happens? Fujisan decides to take a wee. And one hell of a wee. Lasted all night. They closed the rides, and we bought ponchos and umbrellas. I took off my socks, and we ran into the rain to seek cover. It was quite an experience, but I'd liked to try the roller coaster. Meh. Instead, we go to some wine basement. Dunno. Quite boring, and cold as hell.

Thunder! Catch a cab, and go shop for dinner. I wanted to make one of those omelettes I usually do when I'm home alone. Tastes like pizza. And so it did. Oh, and my dad bought the RING book, I chewed it down in one night, lol, you can keep to just reading what they're saying to each other, and still perfectly follow the story. Which is best, book or Hollywood movie you ask? Hmmmm... close call, but I'd actually say movie. Special effects make it much creepier.
Oh, and we change rooms, because planning ahead is for losers. n_n

Wednesday
SUP GUISE GUESS WAT WE DID 2DAY

NO

NO

K STFU I TELL U

Fuji! That's right. With Melinda and My, too. Would have been mindblowingly boring to go alone imo. Up 8ish, bus to the 5th station and walk from there. 20% chance for rain before midday, and 50% after. But we went. Was pretty cloudy, and kind of discouraging to see the hundres of people coming down from the night hike, looking literally like zombies. They couldn't even say 'good morning'. Though, we thought "Ha, we're smart, we walk during the day!", and tbh we were.

It was a good hike, and we had lots of energy, going OMG everytime the massive clouds cleared away the thick, white curtain that encased the mountain, and let us peek down on the surreal terrain below us. This picture is from 2500m ish, you can almost hear the AIR intro music playing, eh?

The walk was a walk in the park, so to say. That was until we reached 3000 meters.

//Fujisan hits Team Fred with its THIN AIR!
-Dexterity fell!
--Quickness fell!
---Strength fell!
----Team Fred now recovers endurance more slowly!
//Team Fred used OXYGEN CAN!
-Fujisan's THIN AIR wore off!
--Team Fred's endurance has been boosted!

Yeah, that oxygen-in-a-can is incredibly refreshing. You can't feel the thin air apart from the raving headache you suddenly have. A quick wheeze and hogging a bit of oxygen clears it away completely! It's like a Cure Disease spell. And it gives a quick burst of energy.

There was no rain on our trip, which was pretty lucky. The sky cleared up as we reached the top too, and we got to see one awesome UFO cloud.

Not much to do at the top. Ramen, pictures, see the meteor-crater sized... crater. It's big. 3 hours walking down, it was SO DAMN TIRING. Have you ever tried to walk downwards on a path made of nothing but rubble and sand? It was nice to walk backwards once in a while though.

We arrived at the bottom at 8 pm, and bought some souvenirs. I gots me a small katana with a ornamented sheath and everything. Room change again, but this time to a luxury tatamimatted room with own bathroom, woo. Shame it's last night. We say goodbye to Melinda and My, and I give them two Lala figurines as a tiny gift. Not much, but eh... And yeah, we were tired, but we had to get up at 6ish.
Video dumps! Internets to me.

Thursday
Up early, and we take the bus back to Shinjuku. RAMENRAMENRAMENRAMEN -Closed-

Shit.

We skip lunch and head straight to the bus for the airport. There was some McDonalds with sauce burgers, so, yeah. On the bus trip I saw THIS building.

Those who've watched Digimon know it. I was like OMGWTF on the bus, and started snapping pictures of it, while everyone around me were going "o.O, gaijins.." So, we fly to Wakkanai, takes two hours. I sleep and listen to iPod all the way. Then, as we reach the top of Hokkaido, the plane turns around, Rishirisan is revealed, as well as the tons of windmills.

Nice view tbh. Land, bus to station, find hostel. Quite cozy little place.
We get our own room, and guess what? INTERNETS! F*** YEAH! I generally spend my day in the manga library or infront of the laptop. Read Dragon Ball 1-18 in a few hours. Some damn old manga there, though. In the library, we meet another Japanese traveler, Takemura-san. I forgot his age though.. 22? Nice guy, though.

Oh, and ever heard of an "Otohime"? Literally means 'sound princess', but I'd named it something along the lines of "Durchfall Dynamo" if it was me who'd invented it.

ONLY IN JAPAN!, it's this little machine on the wall that makes a LOT of noise when you click it, like flushing, coughing, talking, which is mixed into one big crowded soup. I think it's for when you don't want people outside to hear when you're dropping a bomb. They should've at least put an English warning of some sort other than 'PUSH', I pressed it around 2 am in the night, as it then proceeded to make me shit my pants which I weren't wearing. The five lamps you see on it is its timer, when you push it once, the first one lights up for 3 seconds, then the next, and so on, until it reaches the last, it turns off. I thought I could stop it by clicking it again, but that just resets it -.-

Panic & failage.

Dinner at the hostel, which was salmon eggs on rice... very meh. But apparently it's a very expensive treat to Japanese.

Friday
Ahh - finally a chance to sleep in a bit. We get up late-y, and go to a ramen-ya I spotted on the way to the hostel yesterday. Stuffed, small place, but two seats available, and two different ramen, salt (shio) and soya (shouyu). We both take soya, and it was.. salty.

Then, we catch a bus and go to Soya-Misaki, the "northernmost" point in all of Japan, excluding Rebun and its two teeny islands. There was a monument on the spot, so we couldn't miss it, but there were people standing in line for photographies, mostly Japanese. I asked an old woman to take our shot (Everyone had the person behind them take their photo), but she failed. Hard. All three of the pictures were shaky, out of focus, and on one of them showed the sea and half of my dad.

Soo, we had two cute girls take our picture at the side, instead.
Catch a bus home again, place was kinda boring, we were only there for 30 minutes. I couldn't have wanted it any other way.
"Everything sucks." -teenager.
When we return, my dad wants to go to some aquarium "a bit" from our hostel, and he says "20-30 minutes", so I agree, little beknownst to me, and apparently to him, that walking and bicycling speeds aren't the same.
Fishes! (Yes, that's grammatically correct.) And seals, and penguins. I could have touched them if I would. One of the seals was just sitting on its tail in the water, cutely opening and closing its eyes, looking around. It reminded me of Huan, I miss him more than anything ;-;

Oh, and HUGE freaking, spiky, spiderlike crabs. Pretty kewl. We go home, and it looks like it's going to rain, so we try hitching a ride back, but no luck. I find the best melon bread ever, though, and we catch a cab instead. Back to hostel, and I go buy some manga, since I left them all at Hotel Gim.. mond.. deja vu.. all of a sudden. Oh well.

Started on Sekirei, fanservice ftw!

Saturday
Up early, in time for breakfast at the hostel. Bacon and egg, woo. At one of the other tables there's an elderly couple who's going where we are; Rebun-to. Check out, and head for the station. We didn't really know where the ferry was, so we got a map there. And headed in the completely wrong direction. We arrive at the ferry terminal and get tickets 4 minutes before it leaves, and get onto it in time, too. Whew. We carry around two huge backpacks, one in front and one on the back, so it's tiring to be hurrying all the time ...

Not really an awesome donkey ride, that ferry trip, a liittle too shaky. Nevertheless, we arrive on Rebun, and look for "someone crazy with a flag saying Momoiwa-so". And there they are.
Shouting a load of things back and forth from the ferry bridge to their van in the parking lot as they spot us, we're certain we've found them. We have to wait 1 hour for some others to arrive though, so we just mess around a bit and have some horrible seafood lunch.

My dad decides to walk to the hostel, and I go with the van along with 3 other Japanese people, plus the three 'helpers' from Momoiwa-so. They start screaming stuff and yelling about the van's name being "BLUE THUNDER-GO 'S'" and their names are Michael and Ni-Jack, safety rules where you have to step on a crate, and yell "HASSHOU" or something to make the van start... these guys are crazy. Ni-Jack is in the back of the van together with us, and talks the whole trip to the hostel about.. Hell if I know. Some time tunnel where he opens the back and screams, too. Momoiwa is +7 hours, and 30 minutes, being just out of Japan's time zone, and apparently they're very proud of that.

tl;dr this place is /b/, with their very own party van.

It doesn't get any better when I arrive at the hostel.. They drive the back of the van aaaall the way up to the door, and have us step inside saying "I'm back" in Japanese. What we didn't expect though, was 20 people, sitting frozen with various instruments in their hands on the floor, waiting for the magic word.

"Tada... ima."
Hell breaks loose.
I don't think even a shaken crate full of killer wasps could be this frightening for me. I, a quiet computer nerd, pianist, dreaming person, arriving at a place like this... This place is like a night club 24/7!

"You can only have the fun you yourself makes." I guess that sums up this place quite well.

After their bellowing and shouting OKAERINASAI and banging their instruments around, they scatter and leave some "sign-in" forms for us. Okay, so they know how to organize stuff, too. They have these cute little drawn portraits of the staff here, which I found quite funny.

At dinner we meet Takemura from Wakkanai again, and my dad talks with Elizabeth from England. They both persuade us to go on the 8-hour walk from the tip of Rebun to the hostel tomorrow. They have a crazy ceremony for when you get back. Dancing on the roof and stuffs.

Every evening they have a 2-3 hour "meeting" in Momoiwa-so where they sing, dance, scream and perform. EVERY evening, for four months. I can't believe they still have their voices.
Oh, and Momoiwa means 'peach-rock', because there's a huge rock/cliff next to the hostel that supposedly looks like a peach. Looks more like a very hairy boob to me though.

They have a Nekoiwa in the water, too, and a... Penisiwa at the dock a kilometer away. (I couldn't read the kanji, but that's what it looks like, seriously. What a vulgar landscape.)

Sunday
Up 6... no wait, 5:30. 5 normal time. This sucks, I didn't get any breakfast, shower, or anything. I slept on the whole bus ride to the tip. We start on the 8-hour walk, and immediately some Japanese guys are talking to me, despite that I'd been trying my best to keep my distance. They were quite friendly though, Taka-san and Yousuke-san. I think that was his name, anyway. I meet Nori-san and Naomi-san, Mori, and ofcourse Takemura-san, who is now referred to as Takemura-taichou (Captain), being chosen as leader of the hike.

Everyone were really nice, and we talked and walked, and became extremely tired from the heat. I wish Europeans were like that. I mean.. well.. nevermind.

The group later split into two, as some were on the 4-hour trip. So we were halved. We were each assigned a number in Japanese, and ofcourse my dad forgets it. Come to think of it, I haven't ranted about how much he fails at Japanese yet. I'll get to that at some point.
At one point, we reached a seemingly neverending hill which lead into a HUGE bamboo field. It was pretty. I stood around and waited for 10 minutes after realizing I was alone, but no one came, so I just kept walking.

Some of the landscape was amazing. Can you say Samurai Champloo?

It was funny how many things suddenly popped up into my head. First came videogames, mainly CoX, I thought what'd happen if my characters suddenly appeared in the real world.. (More on this later!) Then my family, particularly Huan, whom I can't wait to see again. At one of the shops we stopped at there was a very hostile, small, white dog bound to the wall, it'd snap at your fingers if you tried to touch it. It was surprising for me to know that there was actually dogs like that.. I know, it's obvious, but if you have seen Huan, you understand what I mean.

Then came my friends, schoolmates.. internet buddies.. I wonder how many of you I will still be in contact with in 10 years? 10 years. It's longer than you think, and when you look at yourself in the mirror, you just can't imagine yourself 10 years older. How you'd look, where you'd be, who you'd know. It's the same if you look at your baby pictures. What exactly did you do, or not do, to come this way? Was it good or bad? When I think about what I've done in my life, I try to focus on how many people I've made smile, and base it on that. The more actions I did that had people smiling, the better. Even though I sometimes consciously avoid those actions, it's what keeps me going in life.

Eventually, I reached some gorge of some sort, and picked up a grass and blew into it, sending a whiny echo along the hills. This had me thinking of what effect you individually have on the world. Time travel, they say that every time time travel is invented, it's erased. The moment the idea is born somewhere, and that it's carried out in success, which leads to the eventual destruction of the world, it's erased, or made sure that it can't be used. It all makes sense if you think about it.

Enough braindumping onto the keyboard. We all met up, and headed back towards the hostel. We were dead tired, and didn't join the meeting. Oh, and I should mention these guys.
They'd be standing on the roof of the hostel waiting for us/you, singing, shouting, dancing, clapping. Then we'd do a counting, ichi, ni, san, yon ... juu, jushy! Err..(My dad.), juu ni ... ni juu ni (Me.).
Anyway, dinner, shower, SLEEP. Goddamnit.

Monday
Sleeeee-GINIRONOSORAGAWARERUNOWOBOKUWATSUTATTEBOOOTOMITEITA

GOD, IT'S 6:30, JESUS CHRIST - IS IT BECAUSE IT'S MONDAY OR WHAT

How can these people have so much energy??? Lights out at 22:30, even!

Despite the raving music and the banging of various cooking tools against each other, I manage to sleep until 8. Got up and got some food, shower, and read the rest of my manga in my bed. I have a nice, tiny "room" behind the rest of the beds. Here's me in my cave.

We found out we could get a ferry back to Wakkanai at 11, so we did that, already pretty fed up with Momoiwa-so...

There was 40 minutes of saying goodbye to someone else while I slept, so we left VERY quietly (Even going as far as simply saying "Ittekimasu" instead of "Sayonara").
So, after a bit of walking and eating stuffs, we get on the ferry and 3-4 people from Momoiwa-so are there to dance/clap/sing/wave goodbye to us, with flags. Kind of embarassing if you ask me, but it's good advertisement for them.

And something awesome now: There was an extremely strong wind blowing while sailing, but we were on the rear deck, so we were in shelter. However, just outside the ferry there were tons of seagulls hovering/flying along the side. If you stuck your hand out with bread in it, they'd come eat it! It was fun, but they had sharp beaks. They didn't bite so hard though, but that didn't keep me from taking precautions (Read: Plastic bag around my hand).

Arrive back at Wakkanai, we get back into our hostel that we stayed in the previous week. Dinner was exactly the same as we had last time, salmon eggs on rice. Bleh. But there were two nice Japanese people at our table, an engineer (All Japanese men are engineers) whose name I can't recall, and Aki, a travelling 22-year old art student. We talk a bit and spend the evening with that.

Tuesday
Sounkyo timez. Finally I can relax in some nice hotel, with a TV, Internet and hot spring. NOT.

We get up at 7 to get breakfast and catch our train. 5 hours ride, but I slept the whole way. Arrive at.. whatsthename.. Asahikawa, and buy fooooood, and next train. Obento with sushi, burger, melonbread and apple juice, damn I was hungry.
Reach our stop, and get on the 1-hour bus ride. I didn't really mind the long transportation, as I looked forward to relaxing. Dropped off at station, and we walk up to our hotel.
Two gigantic buildings immediately dominate my view, each with their own onsen at the top, massive parking lots, as well as girls in kimonos greeting people outside the temple-like entrance.

We move past them to what seems like an old folks home... gah.
Anyway, we settle in, and go for a walk in town. They have ramen-yas, woo, I'm relieved. But no bookstore. Crud.

Wednesday
My dad decides to go to the mountain that's nearby here with a girl from the US named Sarah. I stay home. Nice. We have a huge room with beds enough for 6 people, that includes the floor. Tatami mats.
They have this cool little map over the route where my dad went, which says "DANGER, POISONOUS HOT SPRING, BEAR, FOX, AND EVEN MAN WILL BE KNOCKED OUT", you can smell the rotten eggs all the way down here. "DANGER, FALLING HERE WILL BRING YOU TO HEAVEN", cool, a gravity-negating gorge.

Oh, and this place has grizzly bears, everyone wears bells, lolz. I'm walking the route alone tomorrow/today, Thursday.
What I did Wednesday? Walk around town, eat, sleep, surf the net, and I got a cool bracelet with some dingly-thingies on it, pretty nice design, but expensive. 4,200 yen. Oh, and to convert to DKK, remove a zero, and divide it by two. 20 yen = 1 DKK.

Got some nice ramen at lunch, too. I always go for a shouyu chashuumen, which is soya-flavored ramen with pork slices in it. All ramen-yas have it (Note: '-ya' means 'shop'), so I try and find the best there is. So far, the one in Shinjuku is still the best.

Check out this chopsticks-can. I smell sarcasm! "I SURE AM HAVING FUN. FUKKIN HELL"

That's it for now. Some damn long post, sorry about that. When I get a better Internet connection, I'll add more pictures. Oh! And we need a place to dump ALL of our pictures. If you know of any good sites that'll let you store a lot of pictures relatively quick/easy, say so in comments!

-Fu-kun

The Fairy Tale Island of REBUN-TO

2008-08-11T00:13:00.000-07:00

It is Sunday morning exactly two weeks after arrival. We are now on the tiny island of Rebun-to at the very north tip of Japan. The nature is fabulous and the hostel on the rugged west coast of the island is unique.

Under the huge “Peach-Stone” cliff, a group of young people are creating a world of their own. To underscore this, they have set Momoiwa-so time 30 minutes ahead of Japan Standard time…

The hostel building is on a cliff side with a stunning view of cliffs and breaking waves. It is constructed as a huge one room “village house” like those found in Java. The building is 2-3 stories tall and the nice wooden floor at the center must be at least 300 m2. A staircase leads up to maybe 60 bunks loacated at the second floor level – but still inside the same gigantic room. Smaller surrounding rooms and buildings comprise Japanese style sleeping areas, toilets and bath facilities. A dining room at the back seats 75 people on floor mats at long low tables.

The culture of Momoiwa-so is embodied in the 15 staff, who are actors in a 24 hour stage show. First act of the play is experienced already when the ferry arrives at the harbor in Rebun-to. Momoiwa-so staff are on the quay waving flags and greeting you with shouts of appreciation and welcome. They take your luggage in the van, and you may choose to walk the 1 hour stretch across the hills to the hostel on the west side of the island. When you arrive at Momoiwa-so all the staff gather and you get another flag waving and singing reception – which makes you feel good – but also completely baffled: “Do they really do this every day?”

The answer is yes. And in the evening the spectacle only grows. From 1900 to 2200 one side of the center floor in the building becomes a theatrical stage – and for three hours the staff tells stories, sing songs and act out plays – involving the 70-100 people in the audience in dialogue, singing and dancing.

Not understanding the language makes you miss the intellectual content – but anyone will understand the happiness and intensity. Also, forget about doing anything else. I tried to read for a while in my cot – but being in the same room I was soon attracted to the festivities.

And how does it all conclude? Having excited everyone, will they ever sleep? But yes. At exactly 22.15 Momoiwa time, a recording of an enticing and relaxing bed time lullaby is aired, and we are told to be in bed and lights out by 22.30. And behold – so it was.

In the evening we had signed up for the signature trek of Rebun-to. It is an 8 hour course which took the team 12 hours on the previous day. 32 km by foot from the north to south tip of the island. When we signed up, we were told that we would be transported to the north tip by bus – and then trek back: “Departure time is 6.10”. OK - that is not so bad. “But remember breakfast is important – please eat breakfast at 5.40”. That is early, but I can live with that. ”And that means we will wake you up at 5 a.m.” Hmm… this is moving in the wrong direction! “And, of course, that is Momoiwa time! – so it will be 4.30 on your watch.” Arrgh – pain! And I will not repeat Frederic`s reaction here.

But.

It was breathtaking nature all the way; up and down 2-300 m hills, frequent descents to small fishing villages on the beach, fried octopus here, fresh water there, back to the hill tops with adequate amounts of sweat, making me very delicious – by the time we reached forested areas – to the millions of horse flies residing there.

Wonderfully tired returning to the hostel around 6 pm – this or that time – we were greeted by staff standing on the roof! Shouting and singing and welcoming us home: a ceremony lasting some 30 minutes, including standing in line to be counted, singing and bowing.

At six 6am (5.30 Japan time) we are awoken to another piece of beautiful but energizing music. No lying around in bed all day here… Frederic managed however to sleep till 8 am.

I thought I had seen it all – but the climax – the most impressive spectacle of warmth and affection I experienced - was the sending off ritual: 40 minutes of saying good bye, where the staff was waving, singing and shouting in Japanese: “Itterasshai”… until the last person had turned the bend on the top of the road moving into the tunnel back to Japan!

Summary
In my (so far rather short) book on Japan, this experience deserves a *** - three stars using Michelin notation. Michelin says that * is worth a visit, ** is worth a detour, and *** is worth the journey”. My view: for someone studying Japanese and wanting to experience Japanese culture, language and youth close up, this is a must and a treat.

Wakkanai - Japan`s northernmost town

2008-08-11T00:00:00.000-07:00

Thursday 7th August .

We are here! Now there is only 27 km the north tip of Japan. But first we will rest our Fuji-tired bodies in the youth hostel of Wakkanai.

Frederic attacks the hostel manga library: "hey Dad - this collection is older than I". I rent a bike and try to figure out what Wakkanai is about.

Conclusion: The 42.000 inhabitants seem to earn their living from harvesting and drying seaweed, catching enormeous crabs and catering to Russian tourists from Sakhalin. The town has a funny "Hollywood set" feeling.

Is it always empty - or is it occassionally lively with hundreds of now invisible Russian tourists?

Next morning, we made the final trip to Soya Misaki: the north tip of Japan!

Fuji: The view from the top

2008-08-06T13:52:00.001-07:00

5 hours and 40 minutes up. 3 hours down. Peak at 3.773 m. A great day of adventure. I am so happy that we did not choose to climb at night. 90% of all Fuji climbers start at 2200 to reach the tip at sunrise. We chose to travel in daylight. We had sunshine most of the day - and no rain! But! We were all surprised at what lack of oxygen above 3000 m does to you... dizzyness, loss of balance, out of breath.

We slowed down - and used our OXYGEN IN A CAN :-).

Rain again - but enjoyable

2008-08-05T01:38:00.001-07:00

A day of adapting plans. First choice was to climb Mt. Fuji during the day time, but the weather forecast and delays made us postpone till tomorrow morning. Instead together with our Swedish friends Frederic wanted to try the world's largest roller coster. Almost made it before the sky exploded again. Default plan: a Fuji Rouge wine cave - wine tasting - soso - but still a nice ending to a rainy day. The hostel has a big nice kitchen, so we went shopping and converted three big bags with fruit, salad and ingredients for Frederic' special omelette into a delicious meal.

At the foot of Mt. Fuji

2008-08-04T21:16:00.000-07:00

In the backpacker hostel K's House in Fuji-Yoshida:
Five hours thunder, lightning and pouring rain - turned into a cosy evening at the hostel. Card playing, reading, talking to people from all over the world. Dinner finally around 22 - Frederic helped find a Ramen restaurant - meat, noddles, vegetables, cold beer. Dined with two Swedish ladies who discussed the challenges of teenage years with Frederic. Back at the hostel I went to bed (five bed dorm) while Frederic spent the next few hours reading the novel RING! I did'nt know the Hollywood film had a japanese author.

First week - Tokyo is our first treat

2008-08-04T04:38:00.000-07:00

TOKYO - 26th July to 4th of August

Nice flight - would have preferred to sit next to Frederic who enjoyed his freedom :-).

Surprise! Telephone message waiting for us at hotel check in! Our friend and future travel partner - Tonami-san - offered to come and show us Tokyo. Deal. Agreed on Tuesday.

Hot.hot.HOT. Now I understand what they meant by "muggy summer heat". Changed to suitable clothes: short pants, bare feet in sandals, running T-shirt. All of a sudden the heat was bearable. Even nice.

Hotel Gimmond (great bargain - mail me for details) - is in a business district - less than a kilometer from the centre of Japan! Nihonbashi (=Japan bridge). This was the centre of Edo Japan. A signpost shows the distance to important places in Japan.

At first sight the surroundings seem deserted - only consisting of office buildings. But after a few days - I know it sound strange - lots of little but good restaurants serving office workers at lunch and after work. We try half a dozen - the prize goes to a very fast fastfood place where you select and pay for your food at a machine, then give the ticket to a waitress - and 60 seconds later you have your meal. Very good quality - and at prices of 25 DKK per meal. People do not look rushed - but don't linger either.

Tonami-san walked us around Tokyo. Surprise: take the underground and you will forever be estranged. Walk - and you will understand the city - which is large, but still walkable. Nihonbashi, Ginza, Shinjuku, Harajuku, Shibuya and Asakusa were just a few of the places we saw. After the sightseeing we drank beer at a small open pub and later went to a nightspot under the safe leadership of Tonami-san.

Father's view on the trip

2008-08-04T01:00:00.000-07:00

Monday 4th of August at 1700: I see that I am one week behind Frederic in accounting for our experiences. I will make that up shortly. But right now, sitting at the nicest hostel at the foot of Mt. Fuji, I want to enjoy the rain pouring down outside. More to follow.

First week, first meat.

2008-08-03T08:07:00.001-07:00

Ossu, everyone! It is I, Freddy ya Friend!

I made a new/my own blog, since I didn't like the address my dad had made. Yeah, I didn't know you could change it, but whatever!

Here's a quick review of the first week. It's late Sunday right now, and I have to get up early, so I'll probably add more later.

Saturday-Sunday
We get on plane, Economy Extra, woo, upgrades ftw. 10 hour flight in front of us, we lean back and relax. We're on two seperate rows with an empty seat beside us, so lots of room to put our stuff.
I watch some shitty movie about some amateur movie makers.. or something, with that fat actor dude Jack Black. Sleep.

Arrive in Japan! God, it's hot. lolwut 37 degrees ftl.
We take a train into Tokyo, and crash on our hotel after searching for it for 1 hour. We get something to eat at a place called Jonathan's. Tasted like bleh.

Monday
Monday.. what the hell happened Monday.. Oh right, we found out there was a huge cosplay gettogether something every Sunday, which we'd missed, and we're supposed to be on Mt. Fuji next Sunday. Shite :(
We try out the metro for the first time and go to Akihabara, the mekka for otakus. God, it was awesome, I bought like 5 mangas, they cost 400 yen each! That's 20 kr, and they're brand new, the used are 100 yen (5 kr). You who use Euro and Dollars or whatever, go convert yourself, I cba right now o/

Tuesday
Argh.. feels like an eternity since it was Tuesday.. Think we went back into Akihabara, yeah, to get a small computer laptop thing converter translator dictionary for me. Costed a bunch, but it can explain kanji and stoofs.
Erm, what else... I checked anime airtimes on the (crappy) computers on our hotel, yeah, and watched a few. Man, some of them are really late, 25:26 in the night, and they're not very naughty or anything..

Wednesday
Ah yes, this was the day we met Tonami-san. Tonami-san is a 60-something year old Japanese man, father of the friend of one of my dad's accomplices.. er, acquaintances. He showed us around where we wanted to go, like Asakusa, Harajuku and Ginza. Ginza is the expensive place of Tokyo, where Gucci, Armarni and Apple iPod stores dominate the main roads. Harajuku is the youth of Tokyo go. There's this street full of gothloli Japanese girls, weird toy/cloth stores, tons of cafés and restaurants. Hard to breathe there, glad I'm two heads higher than them.
Asakusa was where that big shrine was, and I had dango! Woo! It tasted like licking burnt pancake fat though, think I got the wrong ones.
We sat at some café and talked to two Japanese guys who talked a bit moonspeak with me. My dad asked me to ask them if they were married, but I kind of hesitated (I told you he was hapy-go-lucky, Roddy).
Then we went to some basement where cute Japanese girls went all IRASSHAIMASE~BYONG over us, we paid 10.000 yen for free drinks and girls, etc. Lots of smoke, and this big Japanese boss-type man with a mole gave me a Lupin doll.. it smells a bit weird though, but I thanked him and bowed.
Ami, or Ayako, was our girl for the night. She was really cute, but loud, she reminds me of Lala though. Oh! Speaking of Lala, from To Love Ru.. there're these machines all over Akihabara and manga/anime stores called gambaruche.... or something. Put in 100-300 yen, turn the wheel, and get a figurine in a Pokéball-like capsule.
I found a To Love Ru one, and wanted to get a complete set of the girls, but you can see the results of my tries on attached picture.

Thursday
I love my English. The Japanese do too. But I certainly don't love their. "LET'S HAPPY WITH BIG SMILE", lmfao. Japanese TV is win, but there're commercials in between the anime episodes, which is fail.
I bought more manga... and... I remember Thursday to be kind of fast, weeee diiiid--- uh.
Check picture for my manga anyway.

Friday
IT'S LATE OKAY. Dad can probably remember more about these days than me. I think we went to see a movie Friday. Or.. Thursday. Anyhow, we watched The Happening, and IT WAS SHIT. COMPLETE TURD. DO NOT WATCH IT.
It's essentially a continuation of Signs, or so it would seem. Half way into the movie, it ends. It's like how I thought Transformers would be, but actually is. The idea is great, but the whole movie is just... fail. Small review: NY Central Park is attacked by some virus which causes people to: 1, mess up their speech, 2, be physically disoriented, 3, kill themselves. Kind of cool, and lame at the same time, since people suddenly stand still, and start stabbing themselves, but then suddenly picking up a gun and shooting themselves, or cutting their wrists with shards of glass.
The messing up of speech is cool though, but when a mother calls her daughter, puts it on speaker phone and she goes "Calculus .. calculus .. *window crashes*" (She jumped out the window), I just facepalmed. "DURR WE NEED SOMETHING CREEPY FOR HER TO SAY, HOW BOUT SOME MATH, NO ONE GETS A RAT'S ASS ABOUT THAT ANYWAY, DURRR". Would have been way better if they spoke in tongues.

Saturday
Was yesterday. Well, technically the day before yesterday. We watched another movie, The Forbidden Kingdom. I thought it was the "Mummy 3" to begin with, because there was no picture (We just randomly pass by the cinema and watch the movie playing right now), but it was the one with Jet Li and Jackie Chan in it. It was about kung fu and some American kid who was supposed to return a sacred staff to the Monkey King Sun Wukong, aka Son Goku. Cool kung fu effects, but the plot was kind of bleh, and a bit too fast. One second the kid has going "I CANT UNDERSTAND JOO" to Jackie, and he goes "CUZ YER NOT LISTENING NIG" (I lol'd), and the other second they're engaged in an epic battle against the Jade Empire Warlord.
Whatever, cool film if you like string-flying effects and kung fu.
I go ALONE to Akihabara and buy more manga. Or was that Friday... bleh.

Sunday
Oh yeah, we've moved into seperate rooms in the hotel, THIS IS AWESOME, shame it's only been two days. I took a dump and watched Code Geass at the same time. Pic of my room attached.
What else did we do today... Oh, brainfart cleared, we bought a camera Thursday, that's why no pictures of anything before that.
Back to today, or, yesterday, fucking clock, hope I can get up, we went to Akihabara again... I saw some pianos and got all anxious, been a long time since I touched one... oh, and I tried to get a Gundam robot in one of those hook machines. Goddamn moneystealer.
Btw Rukasu, I've bought the full set of To Love Ru manga available, the next volume is out TOMORROW WOO, you should see them. There's lots of ecchi in it, 10 times more than the anime. Oh, and I'll send you a Lala figurine if I can, but costs a bunch to send mail here...

Better get to bed, though my pillow is stuffed with what seems like moth balls. Hard as hell, crunchy, and smells like puke, plus the aircondition makes it vibrate, so I get a headache. God. nn peeps o/

-Fu-kun