Transform to Tokyo

Well, pretty much all of this seems like so long ago, but I will try and write about all of these things today as today our spring holiday begins fully as now Junten lessons, evening lessons and our volunteer activities have all ceased for the time being. We can look forward to going into Junten again another couple of times during our break as we always can, as we have to attend the graduation ceremony on the 16th and then the real last day of school on the 21st. Yes, I can`t wait, I even have my 100yen (50p) white tie all lined up for the graduation ceremony, no doubt it`ll rock hard… Anyway, I haven`t written in this blog for quite some time, and now it is March already and I have just realised that throughout the month of February I did not post at all. Sorry. But obviously things still happened in February, so now I have a gargantuan (wow, nice word) game (nice alliteration) of catch-up to play now. Well, here goes, Faighto!

Yunessun Trip (22nd Jan): Well, a long time back in January, Mike and I had quite a few random days off Junten work so on the days we could we decided to go out and about and do things (occasionally). As written in my last post, on the 22nd we planned to go to Yunessun `Resort and Spa`, home of the most bizarre ideas for onsen (Japanese hot spring bath) ever. Mike`s girlfriend, Minami offered to drive us there as it would be cheaper than taking the train, so we went with her and one of her friend`s Nozomi. In Yunessun there are a variety of `special` baths, some unique to Yunessun (I presume the chocolate bath, coffee bath, red wine bath, sake bath, green tea bath, etc are) and some world baths (such as Roman Baths etc) as well as some water slides into onsen (luckily not too hot) and for afterwards there is an area for a regular onsen (to wash etc). The two more interesting parts of the resort were the `Dead Sea bath` and the `bath that contained some weird fish that eat the dead skin from your feet` (by the way, that’s the official name…nah, not really, I forgot it). The Dead Sea bath was (you guessed it) a simulation of the Dead Sea, so it was a bath containing a ridiculous amount of salt. It was really cool to be able to float on the top of the water, but if you had any cuts on your body, they would really sting. As well, you were only allowed to stay in the bath for 3 minutes at max, presumably for safety reasons. It told us not to drink or taste any of the water, but we did a little bit when no-one was watching and it tastes really, really, really bad, I don`t recommend it. The other bath with the fish in was kind of strange. We just put our feet in the water for several minutes and let these strange fish eat the dead skin of them. At first it really only just tickles, but eventually it gets kind of uncomfortable in my opinion, Mike said he got used to it and actually found it kind of relaxing after a while. Anyway, that’s about all for Yunessun, if you want to see more, here is the website again: http://www.yunessun.com/english/yunessun.html

Snow in Oji! (Maybe 23rd Jan): How exciting! If Oji has snow, what advantaged does Toya have now? (Sorry for the insult lads, only joking) Nah, it only snowed a tiny amount, but everyone was quite shocked and kind of excited. It snowed again one more time and it actually stuck a bit better, but pretty much all of it because slush dead quickly, so walking on the pavement was pretty horrible.

☆My Busy Bonanza Birthday Weekend!☆ :
LM.C Concert (24th Jan): Well, it all started the evening before my birthday in Shibuya at Shibuya O-East as LM.C (which is `lovely-moccochang,com` by the way) were playing and I recently got into them I thought I would go to start my birthday off. Luckily for me, the 25th (my actual birthday) was included as one of our random days off in this month, though even if it wasn`t, I would`ve gone to the concert anyway. It was a really good concert and it was great to see JRock legend Aiji (ex-Pierrot) on stage. After a few weeks ago`s concerts I was quite sad at how arrogant some of the bands were, but luckily these guys weren`t at all and it was great to see this. They certainly rocked harder too! I would love to see them again sometime. ♥
Edo Museum and Hokusai Exhibition (25th Jan): On the actual day of my birthday Mike and I went along to Ryogoku to visit the Edo museum and Hokusai exhibition my mother had recommended last month after going to it with one of her friends. It was good to learn a lot about the Edo period, but the museum also has a section about another period (Meiji I think, there wasn`t that much English) and by the time we got there we were kind of tired and couldn`t concentrate on reading everything word for word. We did however have enough energy to visit the Hokusai exhibit, which was really good, as I do like ukiyo-e (Japanese woodblock prints) because the style really appeals to me.
Film and Quick Drink (25th Jan): Later that day we went to Shibuya to meet some friends (not that many) and tried to go and see Sweeney Todd, but it wasn`t on at a good time anywhere, so we decided to go and see the new National Treasure film, which wasn`t great but was entertaining. After the film we went along to an Izakaya to meet with some of our other friends, who were out with some of their other friends (how confusing). Lots of them seemed to be drunk already and we hadn`t had anything to drink yet at all. We left quite early as we had plans for the next day…
Robot Exhibition failure and Miraikan (26th Jan): The next day we got up and mailed our plans to our friends who went to the film with us last night and headed off to Odaiba to see if the Robot Exhibition was still on at Tokyo Big Sight, like it said on the posters at Junten. Unfortunately it wasn`t and we still had to wait for Hina, one of our friends. We decided to try and go to the `Miraikan` (which literally means `Future Building`), which is a large and very interesting science museum. We got in, but unfortunately could only stay for a few hours before the closing time since we had been so disorganized. We walked (while playing tag) across Odaiba to Decks where we had a buffet and wasted some time before we could get the Joypolis night pass. It was fun!
Return to Joypolis! (26th Jan): We got into Joypolis, yay! (Not that it is hard, you don`t get IDed or anything, it`s just an indoor theme park). We rode on loads of rides until closing time, including the scary ones and the strange question asking crystal maze (unfortunately not like the old-skool game show) which denied all of our combinations from entering `The Cave or Something`…gutted. Anyway, it was a great way to end my birthday weekend and we even had Sunday to rest!

Ramen `Museum` in Shin-Yokohama (1st Feb): On another one of our random days off around this time, Mike and I decided to go to the Ramen Museum in Shin-Yokohama. The Japanese really don`t understand what the word `museum` means, but it was fun anyway. Instead of learning the history of Ramen and things, it is actually just a large indoor Ramen theme park. No roller coasters though, just the top 8 types of Ramen in Japan and you can try them all! (For a fee!) Mike and I only got through 4 of the 8 half portions unfortunately, but maybe one day we will return and complete our mission!

Chinese New Year in Yokohama China Town (7th Feb): Chinese New Year season was around, so kindly, Yumi one of our Monday evening class students offered to take us to the Yokohama China town to see the Chinese new year, which was interesting. We saw several groups of people doing the `Dragon dance` to give good luck to people and the shops in the area. The Dragon dances outside the shop and occasionally `bites` people (which makes them lucky!) and then goes in the shop and then bites the owner of the shop and then goes back outside to again dance and bite whoever he pleases and then jumps up to grab a small envelope that is dangled from the front of the shop (presumably with money in it for the dancers and music players. All the time this is happening every-so-often people set off firecrackers and bang drums, so it is quite an intense atmosphere, but enjoyable none the less. After seeing a few different dragon dances from a few different dragons, Mike, Yumi and I went to an all you can eat Chinese restaurant, which was pretty cool, and though Yumi didn`t rate it so much Mike and I enjoyed eating absolutely loads, especially the desserts at the end. We had a really good evening and didn`t even get back that late, so we weren`t too tired to tell our colleagues about it the next day.

Snowboarding again! Already! (9th, 10th, 11th Feb): We had just come back from Hokkaido (like a month or so ago), but already we were already hungry for some more skiing and snowboarding, and luckily for us one of our friends Sven was planning a trip out to Hakuba in Nagano prefecture. We took a night bus there and arrived at maybe like 6.30am, when we could go to our hotel, dump our stuff off and head out ready to snowboard…the only problem was rental. Well, there were two problems with rental. One, Mike`s shoes size. It took a really long time to find anywhere that stocked something almost his size that he could (almost) comfortably wear. Two, the rental stuff we rented was of rather poor quality and in all sorts of strange states. The board I rented had both bindings 15 degrees forward and with the back one closer to the toe edge than the front one. Not only that, Happo resort (in Hakuba) was strange in that I couldn`t find a tool bench for a while and I went back to the shop and they said there was one at every lift. By that they meant I could go to the lifties, ask for a screwdriver and they would give me a screwdriver and a milk-crate as a bench. Quality. Anyway, the snow was quite good and once we were all sorted and got into it it was fun just all being together and riding around. The surrounding mountains were very beautiful too.

Jun Ten Recitation and Speech Contest (14th Feb♥): What a great event for Valentine`s day! Hmm, maybe not. Every year Junten holds a Recitation and Speech contest, and this year Mike was chosen to judge the junior recitation contest and I was chosen to judge the senior 1st grade recitation contest and the senior 2nd grade speech contest. I trust that you understand that a recitation is a reading of an already existing famous speech from history and that a speech is a self written, original speech on any topic. Anyway, I was very nervous about messing up the judging, but I did my best to keep calm and I eventually devised a system of how to do it, luckily there was a panel of 5 judges, so I wasn`t alone, but it didn`t stop me feeling scared that I would mess up. Also, as judges we weren`t allowed to confer with any of the other judges until after we had handed our papers in at intervals. It was kind of a tough job and I was relieved after it was over. The speech contest was far more interesting than the recitation contest, especially as the first speech was `Hackers vs Crackers` which I found hilarious. No-one even understood when he was almost blatantly racist other than Barney and I. Here`s a direct quote `We must put an end to the evil crackers`. Anyway, he didn`t mean to be offensive, he just didn`t even realise what he was saying. He thought `crackers` only meant people who cracked programs, rather than an offensive term for a Caucasian person. Anyway, the speeches went on and all of them were interesting or at least entertaining. In the end most of the right people won, so I felt that I did a good job.

My Lucky Valentine`s Day (14th Feb♥, duh): Other than having the delight of judging I was very lucky on Valentine`s day. Kaneko sensei had planned (presumably as it was Valentine`s day) a long time ago in November or something, to take his wife to go and see The Police at Tokyo Dome, though unluckily and unfortunately had an operation the Friday before Valentine`s day, so she could not go. Terry (Kaneko sensei`s nickname) had tried to sell the ticket and tried to find someone else to go with him, but he couldn`t find anyone and was even willing to just give the ticket to someone. I thought it had been too long since I saw a concert and I have always wanted to see something at Tokyo dome, so I said I would go (and luckily scored a half-price ticket). Both of us had a good time and enjoyed the band and now I can`t wait to see legendary, father`s of visual kei band, X Japan there on the 29th of March!

Sponsored Run (16th Feb): The sponsored run that we were going to run for Refugees Japan was the following Saturday, but Mike had been feeling ill from Thursday afternoon and even had to take the day off work on Friday. I went along (really early in the morning, I had to get up at 6.30am, which is 45 minutes too early for me anyway) and then stand on a freezing cold bridge to say `good morning` to the students. To me this seemed really pointless, but to Nakahara sensei it was obviously important, so I didn`t complain (about anything but the cold). We had a small (for me second) breakfast in the teachers area and then went along to the end of the opening ceremony and did the group stretching with everyone. Barney arrived and the three of us went along to the Arakawa River for the second warm-up, which consisted of jogging around in a circle instead of stretches. After this we got ready for the race, and even though Barney and I lined up in the middle, Nakahara sensei pulled us forward as we were part of the `faster runners` pack. We set off and I was nearish the front for the first 3 and a half kilometers or so and then I dropped back a bit. After the 4km mark, Nakahara sensei overtook me, and it was my goal to at least stay with him all the way, if not beat him. It hurt, but I managed to do it, and right at the end, he told me to overtake him and finish the race, so I did as he said and came maybe only a few seconds in front of him and finished at about 37 minutes in about 19th or 20th place. I was quite proud of myself and glad all my training had paid off. Barney finished shortly after us and got 41 minutes. Luckily for Mike there would be a rerun in one week`s time. I decided to aim to get a time of 35 minutes in a week`s time, but for now I could have a hard deserved rest, so Barney and I went back to our house.

Dinner at Nakahara-sensei`s house (16th Feb): We got back to our house and checked up on Mike, who now seemed a lot better. Barney and I took showers, as we had been invited to Nakahara sensei`s house for dinner. We got to the stop, met Nakahara sensei`s daughters (for the first time in months and months), went to pick up Yamanaka sensei and then went a long to Nakahara sensei`s house. It was strangely European, and Nakahara sensei had planned an awesome meal for us and certainly made it just right. Nakahara sensei is also a big fan of wines and cheeses, so we were able to try loads of different kinds of wines and cheeses, which was cool. We left pretty late, but it was a really good night, thank you Nakahara sensei!

Second run (23rd Feb): Well, the rerun was finally upon us and I was intrigued to see how Mike would fare with 8km without any prior training. Anyway, it was a slightly different course this time, instead of running 4km and back like last time, we were going to run 8, 1km legs instead. After about the 3km the wind started getting really strong though, and by my 6th kilometre it was immensely strong. Sometimes walking was quicker than running (due to every time both feet were off the ground you`d be blow backwards) and sometimes you really had to sprint to make any progress what so ever. Anyway, the only people who finished the 8km run were Nakahara sensei and I, as they closed the race after 40 minutes. Mike only completed 6km in 40 minutes, so I was anxious that we wouldn`t be able to collect sponsor money even after trying so hard, but Nakahara sensei said it was okay. Luckily for us we finished the 8km at about 41 minutes, as the wind only got stronger and stronger, so we went back to Shinden campus where it wasn`t quite so windy, paid a quick visit to the basketball club and then went home.

Under code Productions concert in Shinjuku (1st March): On March 1st it was the Undercode Productions (a Japanese visual kei independent record label) 5th anniversary and Kisaki`s (legendary JRock bass player and producer, also head of Undercode) birthday event, so I went into the depths of Kabuki-cho (not such a nice part of Shinjuku) to get to Holiday Shinjuku, which is a tiny live house in a 2nd floor basement (B2F) and only holds about 300 or so people. I seemed to be the only foreign person and one of the only men there as always, so I stood out pretty bad, but after people got used to me and kept seeing me (since it was so small), I didn`t matter so much. I`m quite sure I even saw some girls from Junten too, but I can`t really confirm it. Anyway, I arrived there at 3.30pm and left at about 11pm, so I was there for quite a long time (7 and a half hours) but I really enjoyed seeing all of the bands and as in the other small venue I visited (Shibuya O-East) the bands on the stage can quite easily notice a tall foreign male, so I got some attention from them of course, which is cool I guess.

Anyway, that`s about all for now, I`m so relieved I am finished, even though it has taken me several hours to write this, it needed doing. Maybe on my next day when I will do nothing, I will put up some pictures, or maybe even later tonight if you are lucky. Sorry it`s been so long, and please be patient for the next post! Thanks for reading!

Ben