Peace Out

To all my friends!!

I've been using that intro ever since I saw Mickey Rourke in 'Barfly' say it as he poured free drinks to everyone in a bar, but for me, this is the first time I've ever meant it as sincerely as Rourke said it.

There is nothing I can write, say, or do to express my gratitude and appreciation to each and everyone of you for making my life in Japan more than memorable.

All I can do is say
THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

Heiwado has left Hewia-cho.

Peace Out.

Rafting in Gifu

This is a leap of faith, and I'm hoping for a soft landing.

Entering my last days in Japan, I feel like I'm being drawn and quartered. Trying to get my bags packed, ship boxes home, finish my grad school application process, get my financial aid application in, negotiate the hand over of my school, train Brian to take my place, and say goodbye to everyone!

I wish I had time to properly write about my last weekend trip, but it's not gonna happen at the moment. Anyway, please check out these pictures. They're worth a thousand words each.

Rafting in Gifu Gallery

Thanks to everyone for making the trip happen.

Enjoy.

Tiff's Slideshow

My good friend Tiffany recently returned to Japan from France. She made a surprise appearance at the Heiwa Matsuri last week by sneaking up behind me and giving me a big hug.

Amidst all the party people, she managed to snap quite a few funny pictures; including some of embarrassing shots of me trying to cut the rug.

Click here to check out some of Tiff's pics from the past few weeks back in the land of the rising sun: Tiff's Olympus Slideshow

04.282930.06 平和

The cold of winter is officially over and the warmth of spring is emitting energies and emotions straight through the stratosphere.

My old hometown friend Brian arrived in Japan last week to move into my Heiwa-cho house and assume my English teaching responsibilities. He’s settling in really well; he even started a blog called The Fire That's In Me to write about his first impressions, and I think he’s got a great attitude towards living in Japan. He’ll do well.

At the same time, my good friend Cem left to begin a job writing for the Japan Times. He will be in Casablanca, Morocco for the next three and half months interviewing businessmen before departing for his next worldly destination. He will be deeply missed.

To celebrate this emotional changing of the guard, so to speak, we pooled our efforts to host a three-day squat party in Heiwa-cho. We had live didgeridoo performances in the living room, multiple DJs spinning dance music, fire dancers, a pot of curry to feed 50 people, a BBQ outside, a full bar that included three kegs of Tokyo Ale, another fridge full of bottled beer, and Brian’s very own liquor carousel shot dispenser. Hell, we even printed T-shirts!

Check out some of my pictures from this Peace Town blowout, please click here:
04.282930.06 Heiwa Picture Gallery

To all my friends,

We is were are Rolling Stones. Somebody call Keiff!

花見

BOOZE!!!

Lessons learned:

1. Flight, fight, or Jesus
2. Aaahhhh... comfortable
3. Scooters are bad

Rolling Stones: Bigger Bang Tour

HOLY MUTHA F$@!K!ER!

The only way I can describe the Rolling Stones Bigger Bang concert in Nagoya Dome is with a string of expletives unfit to print here. To say I'm still buzzing or walking without touching the ground would be a mild understatement.

Before the show, I met my friend Toku, his girlfriend Nami, his colleague Motoshi, and a local promoter that goes by the name Go-Low. The night before, Toku and Go-Low went drinking with some of the Stones roadies and received an offer to come backstage. I got to tag along!

Check out the photo gallery here: Rolling Stones: Bigger Bang

We met Pierre, the Stones chief sound technician, who escorted us backstage and gave us a tour of the area. He took us past Mick's dressing room, all the guitars, and up on the stage. I actually walked around on the Rolling Stones' stage!

Eventually, Pierre passed us off to Mike, Charlie's drum tech. Mike told us to bust out our cameras and he started talking pictures for us. He gave Motoshi a set of drumsticks and everyone else got guitar picks.

Check out this video of Mike showing us the drums:



The show itself was fun, but the Japanese audience was a little too conservative. Believe it or not, they didn't even serve beer in the place. Totally mind-boggling.

It took a little while for the audience to really get into it, but the latter half of the show was really fun.

Here's a short video of Honky Tonk Women:



After the show, we all went to a restaurant to chill out, get something to eat, and finally drink a beer. While we were eating, Bernard, one of the back-up singers came and sat down near us.

The whole night was surreal, as it should have been.

Almost Spring

Spring is slowly setting in, but the cherry blossoms look like they’re gonna take another week.

For April Fool’s Day, I went to Inuyama with my friends Cem, Yuki, Ethan, and Alexis for a festival. We spent the afternoon walking around casually eating all the usual matsuri snacks: choco bananas, yaki-mochi, squid, various meat sticks, butter potatoes, etc.

Check out the photo gallery here: Inuyama Matsuri

Here’s a video of Ethan demonstrating how to give a kancho:



If you don’t know what a kancho is, I suggest you read Wikipedia’s explanation here: Kancho

The following day I had plans to go to a cherry blossom party in Okazaki, but the rainy weather forced the party inside. Regardless, we still had a good time, and a couple from Okinawa brought a shamisen and performed a few songs.

I put a few pictures on my Flickr account that you can scroll through here: Okazaki Pics

Heiwa English School: Bowling Party

For the past few years, during spring break, I've also done something with a group of my students. Past activities include a trip to the Higashiyama Zoo and a trip to the Nagoya Aquarium.

This year, due to the unusual cold weather in late March, we decided to go bowling. Most of the kids had only been bowling once or twice before, so I think it was a good experience for them.

For me, I just enjoyed watching them. Check out this short clip of my youngest student named Ha-kun throw a ball as big as he is.



Afterwards, we all went to eat McDonald's hamburgers and fries. It wasn't exactly an educational day, but it when else will I have the chance to throw rocks with a bunch of ten year old nihilists?

Damo Suzuki's Network (Nagoya)

A couple weeks ago I went to see Damo Suzuki's Network play in Nagoya. Damo is an ex-member of the '70s German prog-rock juggernaut CAN. He's now on what he calls the Never Ending World Tour.

Damo travels alone to cities all over the world, and he has a revolving cast of musicians improvise behind him. In each city, he assembles a band of local musicians. Thus, every night is new and slightly or maybe even extremely different.

His show in Nagoya consisted of Hiroshi Higashi (Synthesizer), Makoto Kawabata (Guitar), Atsushi Tsuyama (Bass) all members of the Acid Mothers Temple. As well as local Zen musician Kei (Guitar) with pal Ryoko Ono (Sax), and Taiqui (Drums).

I've been messing around with YouTube a lot recently, so I decided to post this short clip from the show.

Enjoy the noize!

Asama 2000

Last weekend I went with my friends Jason and Mark to a ski resort in Nagano Prefecture called Asama 2000, due to its two thousand meter elevation.

Check out the photo gallery here: Asama 2000 Gallery

We stayed in a Japanese style, onsen hotel called Takemine, located on the top of the ski resort. The only way to get there was to take a snow-cat from the parking lot or ski in. After we arrived, everyone changed into the comfortable yukatta's provided for us, and we went to eat dinner in the dining hall.

The hotel served Japanese carp in a variety of different ways. I'd never eaten carp before, and I was shocked at how good it was.

After dinner, we returned to our room for a three-dimensional sound experiment. We played the Flaming Lips' Zaireeka album using two iPods, each connected to an iFusion speaker setup, and two iBooks, each connected to an external speaker set-up. For one night, we had the best stereo on the planet!

The next day we woke up, put our iPods in our pockets, walked out into a blizzard, and went cross-country skiing across a 3km cat track. At the end of the cat track, we strapped on a pair of snowshoes and went trooping through the woods like the March of the Rotten Vegetables.

Eventually, we decided to dig a snow cave. We managed to hollow out a deep snowdrift that provided us shelter for lunch. After eating, we went back outside and noticed all our tracks were snowed over. It took us some time to find our way back to the cat track, but we did it.

On the way back to the hotel, we stopped off in front of a mirror to have some fun with our cameras.



Pure silliness. Believe it or not, that was the music I was listening to at the time.

All jokes aside, that night I ate one of the best meals of my life; carp sashimi, carp in a kind of sweet miso soup, nabe, tsukemono, fish paste served with a shiso leaf, and a few bottles of atsukan.

Our last day, we woke up to beautiful sunshine and went snowboarding all morning before catching a 3pm snow-cat back down the mountain.

At the end, I concluded that any time Jason, Mark, and I get together hilarity ensues.

Jushiyama JHS Graduation

Last week I attended a graduation ceremony at Jushiyama Junior High School.

Check out the photo gallery here: Jushiyama Graduation Ceremony

It was a bittersweet occasion. I taught these students for four years starting when they were 5th grade at elementary school. I have many fond memories with them; for example, these students wrote letters to my uncle when he was sick, and in return as thank you notes, they received baby pictures of me from my father.

I was very proud to watch them walk and receive their diplomas, but the event also marked the end of my tenure at this school. From April, the town of Jushiyama will merge with a neighboring city, so my contract with the local BOE will be lost.

I enjoyed myself here immensely, but it's time to start moving on...

Heaven & Hell

Less than 24 hours after returning from Hokkaido & Aomori, the mental and physical top of the world, I've descended into one of Dante's icy hells.

My first night back in town I was driving in the rain to a friend's house for dinner. On the way, a Toyota Crown stopped suddenly in front of me; I hit the brakes, and skid into it.

The driver jumped out of the bruised car, stormed up to my door, and proceeded to yell at me in incomprehensible Japanese as I asked him if everybody was all right. The only bright side of the situation was the shock on his face when he realized I was a foreigner; then he started yelling again.

To complicate matters worse, there's been a miscommunication with my insurance company. Evidentially, they still have me insured for a car I threw away over eight months ago. Because of this conundrum, they're telling me I can't use my insurance policy.

Now, I have an irate Japanese redneck pretending he hurt his hip in the accident calling me several times a day demanding he get compensated for his car and hospital bills and a Japanese auto insurance company who I've been paying money to for three years telling me they're not gonna cover me.

If that's not enough, I had to teach twenty-eight English lessons last week as my penance for taking time off to go to Hokkaido and Aomori.

Dear God... have mercy on a poor soul that just got back from vacation and looked down for a split second to turn the Stones up on his car stereo.

Powdertopia 2006

I meant to get this post up about my snowboarding trip to Hokkaido and Aomori much sooner, but last week was really busy.

Powdertopia is an annual snowboard/ski trip organized by JET teachers. This year my friend Tyler organized everything and invited me to come along. It was an offer I could not refuse.

I took a slow ferry up to Hokkaido and met everyone at the lodge. We had four tremendous days in Hirafu Village. Unfortunately, I accidentally deleted some of the best pictures of the trip, but some managed to survive.

Check out the photo gallery here: Powdertopia 2006 Pt. 1: Niseko, Hokkaido

The second part of Powdertopia took place in Aomori Prefecture at Mt. Hakkoda. Our group members changed around a little bit, but it was just a continuation of the same kind of fun. We had three days on Mt. Hakkoda and stayed in a great lodge called Sansou.

Check out the photos from Aomori here: Powdertopia 2006 Pt. 2: Mt. Hakkoda

Heiwa English School: ABC's

All of my classes at Heiwa English School are named after fish. I dubbed this group of 1st Grade girls my Jellyfish Class.

They've been studying with me every Thursday afternoon since June, and they recently finished learning all the letters of the alphabet.

To commemorate the occasion, they decided they wanted to spell the entire alphabet on the floor of my school using only their bodies.

I had nothing to do with this. They orchestrated it completely by themselves, and my only role was to document it with photographs.

Please check out this adorable gallery here: Body Alphabet Gallery

It's precious.

Suzume

Last weekend was relaxing and fulfilling.

Check out the photo gallery here: Good Eats

Saturday was one of those days when everything just worked out perfectly. My buddy Ethan and his friend Takeshi came to my house just before 10am. We had a cup of coffee and then drove down to Seibu Elementary School for a mochi festival.

I used to work in Seibu Elementary School last year, but it'd been a while since I was there. The kids were happy to see us and we got pound rice into malleable putty… then eat it.

On our way back to my house, we stopped off at my friend Fumio's place to pick up a small gas range stove. He served us a nice ramen lunch; we grabbed the stove and were on our way.

Next, we stopped at the grocery store to pick up some fixin's for a Japanese Nabe. We bumped into my elder purple haired neighbor named Kato-san who walked us through the store and instructed us on the best ingredients to buy. She even advised us not to buy certain veggies because she had them growing in her garden patch next to my house.

After buying some beer, we got back to my house and Kato-san was waiting for us. She took us into her garden and started unearthing a bunch of daikon, carrots, & green onions.

That night a few more friends showed up and we cooked a tasty vegetable soup flavored with Korean kimchi, drank a bottle of Imo-shochu, listened to records, played cards, & tried to watch Blade Runner before passing out.

Sunday, my buddy Jason showed up and we went into Nagoya for a night of food and fun. We had dinner at a dirty yakitori-ya named Kadoya where my other friend Toku ordered every part of the chicken most Americans never eat. Liver, ligaments, intestines… hell, he even ordered suzume which is a small Japanese sparrow served on a skewer with it’s head still attached.

Last, but not least, we saw an insane Japanese band called Turtle Island. Their name sounds like some relaxing beach resort, but their music was quite the opposite. It was part jam part punk part p-funk and all aggressive! The band consisted of about 14 members (mostly drummers) while the crowd was full of black leather jackets, mohawks, and crowd surfers.

Check out the video: Turtle Island



Absolutely nutz.

Zubizuva

Check out this video clip from the "New Japanese Music Festival."

Click here: ZUBIZUVA

Sayonara Parties

These are pictures are from the last couple days of my brother Darrell, his girlfriend Stephanie, and my cousin Stuart's trip to Japan.

Check out the photo album here:
http://homepage.mac.com/heyheygig/PhotoAlbum22.html

It was great having them here, and I hope they had as much fun as I did.

Bradley's Message in a Bottle

This is a short video clip of my good Aussie friend Bradley doing his best Sting impersonation in a Hirafu izakaya after a long day snowboarding and a few drinks.

To watch this video click here:
http://www.archive.org/download/Bradleys_Message_in_a_Bottle/BradleysSting.mov

Enjoy.

Stuart Skiing Powder

This is a short video clip of my cousin Stuart skiing deep powder in Niseko, Hirafu during our recent trip to Hokkaido.

Click here to watch this video:
http://www.archive.org/download/Stuart_Skiing_Powder_in_Niseko/StuartSkiing.mov

Winter Wonderland.

Niseko, Hokkaido

Still got family here and little time to tell all the stories from our trip to Hokkaido, but my cousin Stu is doing a great job getting some pics up on the internet.

Check out some photos from our ski trip here:
http://homepage.mac.com/heyheygig/PhotoAlbum21.html

Family time is now running short, so I gotta give them a big send off!