Aug 16th

So I'm back with another post in store. The weather feels pretty similar to a NY subway, and isn't improving each day.

Today was the first day back to work after a glorious 9 day vacation for summer. Ironically after coming back from NY no more than 6 days later I had a full week off. Regardless, it was great to stay local for the week and actually get a nice taste of Japanese-only life. Before the vacation started, I was called into the office by my manager and head teacher. We had a quick discussion and they said they felt they wanted to offer me the maximum length contract extension for one more year at AEON. It was great to feel that my work hadn't gone unnoticed and they said I had the vacation to think about it and come back with an answer once I return.

Saturday night was the biggest festival in Sasebo, known as the Sasebo Seaside Festival. Near the train station, there were food stalls (remember yatai from Fukuoka?) making some real authentic foods for everyone to enjoy while the fireworks show was displayed. The yatai were making tacoyaki (fried octopus), yakitori(chicken), okonomiyaki(Japanese pancake), ramen, champon (noodles, seafood and soup) and a few other things. The fireworks show was great; they launched over 1 million fireworks.

From Sunday 7th to the following Saturday 14th it was just a continuous motion of going to the gym, soccer training and/or practicing golf during the day and going to izakayas and bars for drinks and food at night. Monday after training I met up with a friend and she introduced me to some of her friends and we chilled at a bar for the rest of the night. Somehow or another it turned into a English/Japanese quiz game on my friends IPad and I had to guess the meaning of the written kanji and they had to guess the meaning of my English words.

I played futsal on Tuesday evening at a local gym without ventilation; it kind of gave me the experience of living in a rainforest, 600% humidity and soaking wet, well from sweat not rain. Wednesday I played a full field match at the turf pitch near my house we won 11-2. It felt like playing against a bunch of children. In celebration, I grabbed some drinks with my boxer buddy and commiserated on how to find the best girlfriend and schemed a diabolical plan in order to help him make advances on one of the girls he likes in our class at AEON.

On Friday one of the older guys from Renaissance wanted to take me out for lunch because he is really rich and he can pay for two lunches. I was a little skeptical at first, but hey I guess you never find out someone's true intentions until you do some investigating. We grabbed lunch and he, for some odd reason, called the waitress over and was like, "Hey, this guy, he's my friend. " And started to talk about some of my attributes and all I could do was just sit there like a dog in a pet shop hoping she would take me home. Turns out the guy owns a few clothing websites online as well as owns two buildings in town; no big deal. We drove around in his BMW after lunch and as we were sitting down for some dessert at a bakery he showed me a picture of his daughter. I'm not sure what the clear meaning of it was, but he soon invited me to his house to have dinner with his family sometime. To be honest, if his daughter is going to be there too, then I'll show up with slicked back hair and a dozen roses bulging out of my leather jacket.

So Saturday night I stayed at my friend's house about 40min from my apartment because we were planning to go to Nagasaki on Sunday. I posted pictures of the kid's room a while back. He has his room loaded with weight lifting equipment. His family owns like 10-20 acres of land and his dad is growing rice on all of it just for hobby. I was shocked to see how much land only his dad takes care of while still doing a full time job. Sunday morning we lifted, then went to the same all-you-can-eat restaurant we went to a few months ago then went to Nagasaki city for the day.

This weekend was one of the biggest holidays of the year, known as Obon. It is a 3 day holiday, and the time depends on the region of Japan. Obon is a special holiday to honor deceased family members and their spirits. On the first day, the spirits return to the house, and all the relatives gather and eat food and enjoy time together. On the 3rd day, the spirits are prayed for and guided safely back to their homes in heaven. Nagasaki region has a special ritual, different from many places. Many people construct small boats and a source of transportation for the ancestor to take back when they return to heaven. These boats are let out to sea at nightfall. Sasebo and Nagasaki city are also notorious for fireworks during the last day of Obon. So people were parading the streets with shrines/boats of their ancestors and throwing fireworks all over in celebration. It was a reallllyyyy culture shocking experience to say the least.

Today I returned to work with my contract extension decision in mind. I made my final decision, and it will be to extend my contract. However, for various reasons, I will not be fully extending. I put in for an extension until March 10th 2012. After March 10th I will no longer be employeed at AEON, and I plan to stay in Japan for another month and a half or two months traveling, studying, and enjoying the culture and country before returning home.


That's all for now....... Talk to you soon folks! Thanks for the read!!!! : )

NY Wedding Weekend July 28-31

So here I am, before I know it, back in the Land of the Rising Sun. Thursday morning  at 5am (Japan time) I left Sasebo for a 2 hr bus ride to Fukuoka. From Fukuoka I took a 2 hr flight to Narita airport near Tokyo. From Narita I went directly to JFK 12 hrs. Due to the International Dateline I arrived in NY on Thursday morning at 11am; really weird.

Thursday was one of the strangest days, emotion-wise, I have ever felt. Partly due to the fact that I arrived in New York the same day and time that I left Japan, and partly because I knew this was going to be only a 3 day trip and I would disappear back to Japan in no time really put a skew on things. Looking out the window at the beautiful, stretched beaches of Long Island as the plane approached its landing instantly made me feel welcomed home. Within minutes I had my mom and dad in my arms, embracing their loving hug I last felt since February. 

The first point of destination was to get some good old American food; Subway! Just the ease of ordering a chicken breast footlong sub with double meat and the works was incredibly refreshing.  Next was to the doctor's office for a quick check-up. This was perhaps not the best idea considering there is always a guaranteed frustrating 1hr wait before seeing the doctor. For the first time while being in America, I felt a thorough culture shock. Whereas I'm used to being in a somewhat quiet hegemonic society with people who are of the same background, I was in a loud waiting room surrounded by white, black, spanish people of various shapes and sizes. For some reason I kept thinking, "Why is everyone talking so much?", and started to feel out of place. Of course America is unique for its blending of various cultures and races, but just seeing it in this perspective really made it clear how different it actually appears to a foreigner. 

The rest of Thursday was spent doing some errands, talking with my neighbor, and all the relatives who came to visit for the weekend. That night I went to my brother's (Chris) house to see his new apartment and we spent the night hanging out together before the wedding on Friday. 

Friday was the wedding day. As Chris and dad went to the wedding hall to drop off some equipment, they dropped me off at the mall. I don't know why but I was like a magnet for the random stalls in the mall. One lady made me try on about 20 pairs of sunglasses before I actually agreed to buying one. Another girl stopped me to ask me about the Dead Sea, I told her I knew all about it (which I don't) and she started to ask me all these questions in this pretend sexy voice in a strange accent. I figured I had some time to kill before Chris came back, so why not talk with the pretend sexy voice foreign girl. She washed my hands with this salt like stuff then put shea butter cream on my hands and let me tell you, my hands felt the cleanest they ever felt. 

"Now tell me, how beautiful do your hands feel?", she says. 

"Uh, great, I guess.", I replied. 

"Great? More like fantastic, wonderful, amazing!"  ^_^ 

"Sure. Amazing. They feel amazing."   T_T  "So my next question is, how much do they cost?"

"Normally they are $100, but today is special promotion." 

"Every day is a special promotion."

"Today is 60 dollars. "

"ooo sorry I only have 30 dollars on me. Actually 25, because I'm really hungry."

"Ok my friend," As she inches closer to my ear. "I will do something special for you today."

"Yea? Really? For me?", with an "excited" expression on my face.

"For you," She was practically chewing on my ear at this point. "40 dollars!" 

"I literally just said and showed you I have 30 dollars. I'll give you 25."

"I cannot do such a thing, that is too low my friend." 

"Thanks for the free hand wash, I'll  see ya later." And me and my freshly cleansed hands parted ways with her.

After the mall, my dad, Chris and I all got shaves at the barber. That was a pretty cool experience. Boris was a little rough with the razor and shaved parts of my skin off, but afterwards my face felt almost as good as my hands did. Moving on to the wedding, we arrived at the house, got dressed up and ready to go, and the limo picked up Chris, myself, and the other guys chosen for the wedding party and drove us to the church. We got to the church met with the deacon and he kept calling Chris "Vincent" for some reason. I didn't say anything because I thought since I missed the rehearsal, maybe that was like some code name given to him for the ceremony (I blame video games for my naivety on that). The ceremony itself was incredible. Christine (the bride) looked gorgeous. Everyone in the wedding party was so tense from excitement and nerves. As the best man, I came out with Christine's sister and stood next to my brother. When Christine walked down the aisle I almost lost it. Chris appeared to be holding strong, until I later found out that he was close to passing out at that moment. 

After the ceremony we went to Cedar beach to take some photos and from there went to the party at Lombardi's on the Sound in Port Jefferson with the other 120 guests. The cocktail hour consisted of 13 different stations, ranging from sushi bar, to mashed potato bar, to lamb stand, to eggplant parmesan. Of course there was a bar with an eagerly awaiting bartender ready to intoxicate all the guests. After cocktail hour, everyone moved into the main dining area for dinner. The wedding party did the self introductions and myself and Christine's sister did a choreographed spin as our names were called to enter.

Once everyone entered the hall, I was set to make my Best Man Speech. Before I could start, I was antagonized to speak Japanese, so I just said a simple, 『皆さん今晩は、今日は特別な日で、私の兄の結婚式です。結婚式に参加してくれて本当にありがとうございまいした。』"Good evening everyone, today is a special day, my older brother's wedding. Thank you very much for participating in the party." I then proceeded with my speech, which I may post a rough copy of on the blog. After the speech we indulged in a wonderful dinner and danced like maniacs for about 4 hours until the party was over. Within that dancing time, Chris played a song that he wrote for Christine with his guitar. It was really impressive that he played the song perfectly in front of a group of people that he actually knows. The party ended about 1230am and we returned to the house to relax and I gave my neighbor his birthday presents because Friday was also his birthday. 

Saturday was the last day in New York, so I made appoint to take full advantage of it. I met with one of my buddies for lunch, caught up with a few people on the phone, worked out at the house with my dog, and got ready for a big party night. That night I went to the club with 6 friends to see one of our favorite record labels.  The club was in the basement of the Hudson Hotel. So you walk in to the building, go to the left, show your ID, buy a ticket, and proceed down several flights of stairs into the basement. As you walk through the hallway, the wallpaper on the walls gradually disappears and become concrete graffiti filled. Then you walk through a door to the bar area. In this room you can hear the music, but not really sure where it's coming from. If you proceed to walk straight there is an opening and in the room next to the bar area is a HUGE open area which used to be a basketball court. It's filled with couches, lights, big screens, and a nice sized platform for the DJ and his entourage. The beats were wild, the dancing was crazy, the people were out of their minds. We left the part at about 530, returned home at roughly 630, and I packed up my stuff and got on a plane out of the country. 

What a weekend to say the LEAST. Now I must return to the real world for now, and teach my students with a new motivation. I didn't lose any time seeing my Tuesday students and while they proceeded to continue their daily tasks for the week before our next meeting, I flew across the world, went to a wedding, partied my face off and came back. I'm not sure if I will be able to face them the same way from here on out, but only time will tell. 

See you on the next post !