Going out with style

So this is it….

Thursday, the day before my last day I was taken to a summer festival for some location filming.  It was a special festival at the Ikutama shrine.  Very nice.  My first japanese summer festival.  The food was pretty good.  Nothing too abnormal.  Most of the stuff is actually pretty good.  They even had the pancake balls I love.  The weird thing is the games.  They have the normal “knock prizes over to win them” games and then they have the “catch a baby chicken in the bag and keep it” game.  They had alot of those kind of things:chickens, goldfish, hermit crabs, EELS.  The eel one was definetely the weirdest because you had to hook the eel on a line and reel him up.  Everything else you had to catch, the eel you had to stab.  So besides the booths and all the girls in summer kimonos, which is so cool to see, the temple activities were cool too.  I had the temple….guys(they weren’t monks so I don’t know what to call them) bless me with good luck.  It involved them singing, clapping and then bitting me on the head with a fake dragon.  Then I got a good health stamp on my arm.  Then, for good measure, I got it on my cheek too.  MY FACE CHEEK.  I found out later that only kids or really crazy, cool guys get stamps on the face.  ALRIGHT, crazy cool.  So I walked around with my stamped up, dragon bitten body until it was time to work.  At night there was a ceremony involving a long parade of musical children,  a wagon with drums and chimes being pulled around,  and 2 giant shrines being sprinted around by some guys.  It was all very vast and very hectic.  So I am on the side taping from a safe position when my boss runs up to me and says something like “Andrew, your a camera man.  Go get the good shots.” and he pushes me into this giant mess of people.  So I am running around, ducking and dodging people and kids trying not to get trampled to death will taping the whole event.  I see my boss running in front of the shrines and I am just impressed that he isn’t killed.  Then after all the mayhem is done the real event gets started.  They pulled out this giant wooden wagon with a huge drum in the center.  The thing had to be about two car lengths.  After they pulled it into the center 6 guys dressed in all japanese style garb jumped up on the wagon and started playing the drum in the center.  Then the wagon starts getting moved around the shrine.  It starts out moving slow enough but then they really start to pick up speed.  Then all of a sudden the pull it around in front of the shrine and do a full out sprint towards the shrine.  I am standing right next to the shrine so I saw the following very clearly.  I thought they were going to turn at the last second.  Instead, I see a lot of the guys in front of the wagon sliding and trying to stop and this massive wagon while the back kept pushing.  I just stood there and was like “Is that thing about to crash into the shrine and all those people? It is going to stop in time right?” WRONG.  That thing came flying in there at like 5-10 miles an hour, full force.  I heard a loud slame and a lot of people scream.  I look over real quick to see that the wagon has hit the first steps of the shrine and stopped and all the people who were standing there are trying to recover from the shock of a 1 ton wagon crashing a foot in front of them.  And the whole time the drumers were still druming.  I was so happy everyone was okay and thinking that it couldn’t get more exciting after that.  I just want to say at this point that everyone really needs to go to at least one summer festival in their lifetime.  So the wagon pullers pull the wagon forward a little and push it close to the different crowd.  As soon as they get it over there they all run to run side and flip the thing over about a foot away from the crowd.  I am not joking, they ran up and flipped the sucka.  And once again the crowd screamed and dove for cover.  They did this a couple more times.  They did this with the drummers still in the cart.  In fact the drummers never missed a beat, they just kept on druming.  The scariest part was the guys whose job it was to duck under the cart and catch the drumers on his back. I thought he was going to get crushed by the cart more than once.  That was my last real day of work.  Not too bad.

My last day of work was too sad to go into great detail.  There was one point were a boss of mine gave me a real good handshake and I almost lost it.  But everyone gave me amazing parting gifts and we all got to take one last picture together.  Unfortunately, there was a major event going on so many of my friends at work had to leave early that day.  The ones who were left though went out with me after work and got some sushi and drinks.  It was a great way to end an internship.  I am just glad I won’t have to wear that suit anymore.

The next day I got up early to go to Universal Studio Japan with my old friend bart.  It was his birthday the week before and this was probably the last time I see him for a long time.  So we went to USJ together with the two free tickets that I had recieved from work(gotta love the free swag).   But thanks to the typhoon that was coming in it was raining that day(just like it had been raining everyday).  So Bart and I walked around and went on whatever ride wasn’t closed down that day.  It was surprising to see how many people still came despite the rain.  I guess when you don’t get many days off you gotta do what you gotta do.  Pretty fun but everything was in Japanese so suffice to say it was all a little off.  Especially seeing all the american sceens dubbed over into japanese.  After getting completely soaked we grabbed some sashimi and parted ways with one final goodbye.

Then we got hit by a typhoon.  I don’t remember much because like most natural disasters I slept through it.  Now its time to pack and get out of here.  See ya soon

t-minus 4 and counting

last few weeks

So Japan has their own version of “Who wants to be a millionare”.  Not the best topic to start on but I wanted to say it before I forgot.  I could tell what it was immediately because the host looked like a Asian Regis Philbin.  The one thing that made this version funnier was than the american counterpart was the famous pause.  You thought regis was a jerk for making people wait so long to find out if they were right or not, the japanese guy was like 10 times worse.  I wish I would have timed him one time.  It honestly must have been like half a minute.  What a jerk.

So, I am back in about a 2 weeks.  Yay.   But I still gotta go out in style.  My company took me on a little field trip to the Osaka bay area aquarium.  SO COOL.  I have photos of it uploaded if anyone wants to see.  It was so cool.  They had these HUGE tank.  I mean it must have been 4 stories tall.  They had all kind of oceanic fish and mammals in there.  When I first got up to the tank there was somebody in there feeding the giant stingray and I do mean giant.  The things were bigger than him.  He had about 4 or 5 swarming all over him to get some food and the guy reaches out and shoves the giant sting ray hard in the face.  THE DUDE PIMP SLAPPED A GIANT STING RAY.  Right in front of me too.  At that moment I was all like “Okay he’s pretty brave.”  Then the next second a 10 meter long whale shark pops up about a foot in front  of me.  I went from the guys brave to THE GUYS NUTS, he’s swimming with jaws over there.  Seriously if you could have seen this thing the way I did.  It literally snuck up on me.  I was at the corner of a tank and he came swoping past me.  Fantastic.  They also had a bunch of exotic fish too.  They were okay I guess.  But they also had huge exhibits with dolphins, penguins, seals, and otters.  All of them through giant tanks so you could see them swim all the way to the bottom and come back up again.  I liked the seals best.  They had a few pups with them that would just swim up to the tank and stare at you with their cute little eyes.  So much fun.  The rest of the day was spent in the bay area looking at stores and stuff.  Though we did get to go to a Cafe du Monde they had which was so cool because they had photos from the real one.  I pointed to one of them and yelled “Dude, I was so there.  That exact spot…..THERE……I was there a few months ago.”  I felt so proud.  Got to eat some Beneits too.

Then we got back to the company and my coworkers started handing out going away presents.  My friend Reona gave me two free passes to Universal Studio Japan.  I can’t wait to get there and check out the Japanese spider man ride.  It was fun in Florida so it better be fun here too.  Another co worker gave me a sumo bansuke.  Here is the explanation: It is basically the lisiting of the most famous wrestlers in Japan at the time it was printed, as well as lesser known sumo, judges, and sponsers.  First thing I do when I get back is getting it framed.  It is so cool.

I also have one last update…..sometime(I don’t know when) while I was working in my video company my wallet got zapped and all my bank cards won’t work know.  At least they won’t swipe.  So getting money is now a little more difficult.  Also I found out my plane leaves at 830 which means i must get there by 600.  Kyoto is 2 hours away from the airport so I would have to leave at 400.  There aren’t any trains or buses that run that early.  This is called a conundrum.  So that’s it.

WOW That Really Happened

Okay that was messed up. I know I haven’t written in a while but this is a interesting one. The tale begins with me taking a jog around the neighborhood last night. I had just finished when I went behind my hosts family’s house to do some stretchs. I finished up and headed into the house but stopped short of the driveway to feel a cool night breeze as it blew by. All of a sudden I hear a loud THWACK and some guy yelling. I turn around and the neighbor is walking up between the two houses holding a large bat. He looks extremly angry and starts looking around and then finaly spots me standing there. He starts to give me a serious eyeballing with his bat perched on his shoulder. I thought that maybe I made a noise and this guy was angered by it. I really wanted to just turn around and walk into my house but I felt that if I walked away then the dude would know it was my fault. That in one way or another it would prove I was wrong. To hell with that, it is my alley too. I didn’t scream, I didn’t yell, I didn’t even talk. So I stood there and eyeballed him right back. Eventually the guy took the hint and went back into his house, swatting at everything inbetween.

So I thought that was the end of it. Kinda interesting but not really. Ladies and Gentleman that was just the setup. Bring the curtain up….

It’s around one a.m. I’m asleep and I haven’t had alot of that recently. Its quite, its peaceful, its sleepy-time. Perfect time for crazy neighbor to bust his window out. Yeah you heard me. Dude threw a toaster or something threw his 2nd story window. He then preceded to bust up everything in his house. I am just guessing it was everything because he was dropping things for like 20 minutes. He kept chucking things out of the hole in his window too. The whole time his wife is yelling at him to stop. Just yelling and crying at him well he tears their house to pieces.

At this point I am freaked out. There is no way I am going back to sleep with this going on next to me. And if the guy is crazy enough to destroy his house then he might just be willing to take a swing at his wife. So I get out of bed and head downstairs and outside because there was no way I could let that happen. I really didn’t have a plan but at that point I wasn’t going to really wait and see how things went safely in my room. I step outside and I see that my host family is already there and the guy has taken off already in a huff. We check out the damage and find all kinds of things thrown inbetween our houses: clocks, phones, part of an answering machine, you name it. All chucked from a broken window two floors up. And the clock by the way was broken so that it would constantly beep so I had to deal with that for the rest of the night too. The wife had up and left too so we decided that there was nothing more we could do so we went back inside.

I found out later from my host father that the guy and the step son don’t get along so well and that was probably the problem. One long scary night.

Just when I get out they drag me back in

So this is my post.  Nothing exciting but it amuses me.  I had to do somemore location shooting at this high school.  Now I have been to this place once before for a little while.  ONCE.  We had taped something for a promotional video and by we I mean MY TEAM.  It`s me and a couple of the old boys here.  So the first time around I got into a little trouble because I talked once too often with some of the students there.  I can`t help it if they wanted to talk with me.  And if anyone knows me they know that I can`t ignore someone trying to talk with me.  That and I burn faster than any human being on earth but I`m spoiling the ending.  So anyway we get there and start setting up for the athletics day at the school.  Everyone is outside and ready to compete in weird and wacky races.  As soon as I step outside I am assualted by highschoolers yelling my name.  It`s safe to say that I remembered NONE of their names so it was a little ackward for me.  That and the fact that I had 400 high school girls swarming over me.  There is not a word in japanese for jailbate but that doesn`t change the fact that it`s still illegal.  All I want to know is WHY wasn`t I that popular when I WAS in High School?  Immediately my co-workers start eyeballing me and yelling `Andrew, DAME`.  In Japanese that means BAD or don`t do it and is pronounced DA like the russian word for yes and ME like may as in may I have some tea.  So I am trying to be on my best behavior.  I even offered to buy everyone drinks because it was so hot outside(hint).  On my way to the vending machines I was stopped to take a quick group photo.  So I said sure why not…WRONG…1 turned into 13.  13, and that is not an exageration.  Everyone in that group wanted a photo with me and even a couple of people who weren`t in the group wanted a photo of me with the group.  So after 10 minutes of posing I try to find a way inside only to find that every door and entrance has been locked and baracaded.  And by lock I mean with chains it was the biggest fire hazard I had ever seen.  So I return to explain to the group why I don`t have any drinks.  While I am explaining a couple of girls run up behind me.  Take a picture in front of me like I`m a statue and then run off.  My team turns to me and starts yelling `Andrew WHAT did we tell you?` and I`m trying to say `It`s not my fault` in Japanese.

So to wrap up about 8 hours later we start packing up to leave and I take a good look at my arm and realize that I am about 10 shades redder than I should be.  The rest is just a painful blur that I rather not go into. 

Go Hanshin TIGERS

Fantastic. Thats all can be said about the game. But for those who don’t know let me give you a little background on the Hanshin Tigers. I was watching the travel channel a while back (when I still had television) when they had a special about Japan. I thought “hey, this looks up my alley” and decided to give it a gander. The show was alright, it was some guy going around and doing stuff I thought I would probably never be able to do (ha, I showed me didn’t I). He ate octopus balls and talked with Japanese people but the thing I remebered the most was when he went to a Hanshin Tigers game. It was one of the most interesting things I had seen in a long time and I swore if I ever made it to Japan that I would see a game. Fast forward a couple of years and I’m in Japan studying abroad. I am thrilled that I can now see a game. I check out tickets and find out there are only three games left in the season and they are all sold out……..DAMN IT. “Well that was a trip to Japan wasted. Now I’ll never see a Hanshin Tigers game.” Fast forward some more to this trip. My company scores me some tickets to a game and I am thrilled to death. But of course it gets rained out (To those who read my last blog you know the story). Okay now that my whole saga of trying to see a game is over lets get down to me actually seeing the game.

Oh and what a game it was. It was supposed to be me and some people from my company but it turned out everyone was busy so it was me, my host brother, and two of my friends from Webster. We get into the stadium and it is just packed. I mean every seat has a butt in it and every butt is cheering for the Tigers. Except for like this tiny section for the other guys team, the Kobe somethings, I don’t remeber they’re not important. So before we go in there one of the girls at my company who was showing us the way, gave us a bag of Hanshin Tigers….uh, geez…whats the word I’m looking for… crap, that’s it.  She gave us a bag of Hanshin Tiger crap, but in a good way.  In it was some hanshin tiger ears, the classic Hanshin tigers noise bats (it’s two colorful bats that you hit together when you want to cheer), and some hand clapper things we didn’t really use.  The only complaint I have was that because she was a female fan all of her memorabilia were pink.  But that didn’t stop us.  Remind me to show everyone the photos of me in the pink ears and, YES, I did wear them the whole game.  So the game was alright but the fans, oh my stars and garters, if you can go just for the fans.  They are all crazy about the tigers.  I have never seen an entire stadium cheer in unison.  And I don’t mean every one was like “Yeah tigers”.  I mean every player had their own song and everyone in the stadium knew it but us.  I think the total count by the end of the game was 45,000 fans.  It was an amazing sight to see.

So when we walked in the score was already 1-0, tigers losing.  Thats the set up for the rest of the story.  After we sat down we started getting eyeballed by all the people around us.  We scared a whole lot of people.  But you know us, we started talking with everysingle one of them.  We had some old ladies behind us that turned out to be super sweet and even held an umbrella over us when it started to rain.  My friend Brian talked with the people in front of him and almost hooked me up with their daughter (not a good thing).  Apparently she thought that I was very handsome and cute with my pink ears on and started asking questions about me.  I guess she really thought I looked good.  Then there was the couples in front of me who were die hard hanshin fans.  The  two girlfriends also thought I was very cute with my ears.  The boyfriends, not so happy about that fact.  But by the next inning we were all laugh and having a good time.  I was actually able to carry on a pretty long conversation with all of them.  I know I have only been here for three weeks but I am kinda surprising my self with how good I have gotten.  I was doing a little better than my friends who were studying there for the whole year.  Anyway, everyone around us was just happy to hang out with us.  The crowd was loud and rambunctious and the game.  Of all the games to see we got a great one.  Like I set up before, the tigers were down by one, in the bottom of the seventh they had a guy on and one out.  The batter pops a foul ball strait up and the catcher goes for it.  On his way he trips over the batter and both of them go rolling.  The ball lands and the batter is called out.  That was the angriest crowd I have ever seen in my life.  Angry Japanese people yell the funniest things even if you don’t understand the language.  The coachs came out of the dug out and started yelling at the umpire for 20 minutes.  It was so intense.  They didn’t put it up on the big screen for a replay and it took me a while to figure out why.  EVERY FAN  had taken out their cell phones and were watching the replay live on T.V.  45,000 people all looking at their cell phones.  By the end of the whole ordeal the manager was thrown out of the stadium.  Awsome.  But that didn’t keep the fans down.  As soon as the inning ended they did their traditional 7th inning stretch.  Every fan took out these giant balloons, blew them up, and let them go at the same time.  I have it on tape and it was one of the greatest experiences I have had on this trip.  The entire sky was just filled with ballons.  I will show everyone when I get back.

After that the 8th inning went on with out anyone scoring.  Then in the 9th the Hanshin tigers pitcher struck everyone out.  And then we experienced one of my best sports moments ever.  It started to rain hard, the tigers got a man on, got another on first and him to second, walked him to third, and then the next guy had himself a full count with one out, bases loaded.  And THEN, they walked the guy home.  Kinda anti-climactic but still it got a guy home to tie the game.  Then the next guy came up and they hit him and that one the game.  It doesn’t sound cool but you should have been there.  When they came from behind to win the whole stadium exploded.  All the people around us started giving us high fives and screaming.  Then we all sung the Hanshing theme song.  IT WAS EVERYTHING I EXPECTED FROM THE GAME AND MORE.

I want to watch Bambi so bad right now

I know its been a while but I have been swamped with work.   THey really don:t want me bored so they are loading on the work.  The other day I was up at 5 oclock to make it to work on time and I didnt make it back untill 11.  Today is saturday and I am in Nara.  I am to help out on the live studio news program.  Probably just helping set up chairs or something but I did get to go check out the temples in Nara so that is a plus.  But get this, we went to nara park where they have live deer running around.  Remember how I talked about the……..

sorry about that but I had to go work and now it is like two hours later.  I got pulled away and boy have I been busy.  I had to go step up the stage.  And I dont mean chairs I mean the actual set that they will be using.  Then we grabed some really good lunch of ramen and chinese dumplings.  After I meet the cast and they were all really friendly.  The weather lady is kinda crazy but she speaks great english.  The main news caster is an american.  His wife went to high school in Brentwood.  When I was introduced to him he started to speak english with me and shocked the hell out of his makeup department.  Aparently in the 38 years he has worked there he hasnt spoken english at all.  So I got to hang out with the main news team.   Anyway back to what I was saying before…

remember when I saw those wild monkies, well this was like 10 times cooler.  It was like a giant petting zoo.  The deer where all over the town.  People would play soccer in between a group of deer.  They were like big dogs really.  You could pet them and you could feed them.  That was the coolest part because there is a special way to do it.  You bought a deer cracker and then the suckers just flock to you.  But you cant just toss it at them.  When the walk up to you you hold the cracker over your head, say something in japanese that I think translates into `respect for your god` and then you are supposed to bow to the deer.  Here is the kicker  THE DEER BOW BACK.  It is so cool.  I wouldnt believe it unless I did it and caught it on tape.  The deer bow.  How cool is that.  It is so funny to see.  Its not even like a kinda thing with some of them.  All the deer bow if you do this.  They told me that the deer god from the mountain taught them to do this so that is why you are supposed to show respect to the deer god when you feed them.  Anyway,  after walking around and seeing a butt load of temples with deer hoping around them we went to see the daibutsu.  That is the giant buddha statue that they have in Nara.  It is the biggest in Japan.  Then I had a melon soda float at the top of a temple on the top of a hill that overlooked everything. 

That has been my day so far and it is not yet finished.  I Will let you know how it goes tommorrow as well as tell you about what happened when me and my old roommate meet up the other day.

later

Here I go again on my own….

going down the only road I’ve ever know. Wow….White Snake totally knows what they’re talking about. So I am going back to Japan. Correction, I am in Japan now as I write this in the airport lobby. I threw down 500 yen for internet access and I am going to get my yens worth with this. So far everything has gone pretty smoothly. My lugage has made it, made all my flights, got lots of sleep on the way over…..My only major complaint is that I got stuck between the two fattest asian men I have seen in a long time. I swear when they bought they’re tickets they said, “Hey lets sit apart from each other so someone gets stuck between our massive butt cheeks.” I’m sorry for being rude but they took up the arm rest and I wanted to use them too. This was my first time on a plan after turning 21 too. Nothing says good flight like all the free wine you can drink. I guess I will let everyone know what happens when I get to my final destination. Hopefully I will have enough stories to keep this blog as exciting as the last trip was.

Later

UPDATE

Well Guess what….I got the internship in Japan. Yes I shall be returning to Japan not as a student but as an employee. Actually, I will be returning as an intern but whatever. If you don’t know how, my school has a program called IBIE or International Business Internship Exchange. It might be through the whole state but I’ve been wrong before. I will be over there between May and July. The best part is that it will be back in the same area. Yes I will be back in OSAKA. Where in Osaka I don’t know and Osaka is very big so that might be a problem but still. See you in Japan.

Happy Thanksgiving

Well, I hope everyone out there had a wonderful holiday.  The students in Japan celebrated in our own way.  We had a day off for some holiday that most japanese people don’t even know about.  So we spent our day back on Monkey mountain.  Many people heard of our tale and wanted their own experience. So we went again.  Thats the good thing about wild monkeys is that you never know what they are going to do.  I won’t go into the details.  One story of wild monkeys is enough for me.  We ended the night in a classic turkey day style.  We went to KFC.  Yes Japan has a Kentucky Fried Chicken.  But sadly it isn’t the same.  I don’t know what it was.  It was either the hard, soggy chicken, the price, or the fact that they didn’t come in a bucket.  We were all just thankful that we could celebrate it together and in Japan.  Man, I want some mashed potatoes.

Updates

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