the slacking.

I just looked at my blog and noticed that I haven't posted for over a week. That's just not acceptable.

Sooooo...things have been going pretty well, for the most part. I'm still struggling to put all of the pieces together financially, but that situation should be decidedly improving in the weeks and months ahead. I picked up another part time job...it's temporary, but it should lead to other work that I hope will be as lucrative.

About the job: as of Friday, I'm teaching English to elementary public school kids. It's actually really interesting. The English part of the equation is, of course, ridiculously easy. The difficult part is putting yourself in front of 25 curious pairs of eyes and subjecting yourself to their scrutiny. Children can sense fear, of course...fortunately, I've handled much worse things than a classroom full of curious Japanese children in recent times. They seem to like me and they seem genuinely interested in American culture. I like kids, generally, so that probably helps...they can sense that, as well.

The teachers and staff are super friendly and my Japanese will definitely be getting a workout in the mornings and in between classes, which is what I want. No complaints on that, although, obviously, mastering a new language is a constant battle. I probably shouldn't use "mastering" and "my Japanese" in the same paragraph, however. It's going to take a while. On the other hand, I do seem to be assimilating new words a lot faster and more easily than I was when I first got here.

Socially, things are moving right along. Last night I went out to Shibuya with some Italian researcher friends, as well as my friends Hanako and Eri, and we went and caught a couple of bands and a DJ and did some dancing. It was fun, although, of course, I missed my last fucking train and stayed up all night in Shibuya. I met some interesting people, but would have preferred to go to bed.

Side note: you know, it's weird that I almost never went dancing while I was with Maria. Amusingly, she saw me joke-dancing spastically at a party one time, and assumed that I am generally dance-floor retarded, but the reality is that I can hoof it surprisingly well for a guy of my height, thickness, and generally lumberjack-ish appearance. People have actually made a number of comments over the years, especially more recently, and I usually don't quite know how to handle them, which sometimes leads to some social awkwardness. I'll work on it. In any case, I suppose that it's possible that over a decade of DJing might give you a good sense of rhythm.

Speaking of which, I'll be DJing in Daikanyama in 2 weekends. It's a trendy neighborhood in central Tokyo. Naturally, it's not a paid gig, but my hope is that it will lead to some of them. Or even just *more* unpaid gigs. I'll get free drinks out of the deal, so it could be worse, I supppose. Actually, there are a lot...a LOT...of opportunities in general in the expat network. We are a well-paid, fairly talented bunch of people, for the most part.

Anyway. Time for bed.

The Christmas, Part 2.

I never finished my Christmas story, and it relates to some other tales of woe that I'd like to put up on here, so I think that I should finish it.

After the vomiting, I felt that it would be prudent to go home, so I began my 1 hour journey back to Ichikawa Station and then on to my apartment. I went home and slept for about an hour, which was nice, but probably not entirely necessary. I felt fine after the projectile vomiting into the toilet.

I really, really...really...did not want to teach my night class, but it would be walking away from $100. Not a great idea, financially. So, I took the train back to Kawasaki (another hour and 20 minutes), and then went to Ofuna (30 minutes) and taught my class. On the way back to Kawasaki, I usually just jump on the Tokaido rapid line, but the Christmas train of total joy and wonderment decided to take me to Osaki instead. Oh, Happy Spirit of Christmas...thank you, Jesus. Thank you. I got off the train in Ebisu, and then went to Shinagawa, and then back to Kawasaki (total trip: over 1 hour). Keep in mind that I am, of course, starving because I rushed onto the train in Ofuna in order to make it to a Christmas party. At this point, I've officially been on the train for over 4.5 hours. And I'm starving. And super cheerful.

Anyway, let me wrap this up quickly. The party was nice, but I, naturally, missed my last train and nearly ended up spending the night in Shinagawa. I made it back to the party, however, and spent the night in a capsule hotel with a friend, who showed me the ropes. It was actually pretty nice, thanks to the public bath on the top floor. I sat in the bath (basically a huge hot tub) for a good half an hour and just absorbed my day for a while. I slept well...it was actually big enough for me...and I woke up feeling pretty good the next day, when I had another nice, long bath.

So. Yeah. Christmas in Tokyo sucked shit, but ended not-too-horribly.

Quick update...

I'll try to make this one quick, but I really need to get back on here and start blogging more regularly...I have a number of hilariously unfortunate stories about myself that should be archived for posterity, if nothing else.

OK, so, quickly. Things have been going well since my return from Korea. I hadn't realized how huge of a weight that the visa run had been on my shoulders, but, suffice it to say...it was huge. And now it's gone. I've succeeded at my goal of living in Japan, which is an amazing feeling.

Anyway. I'm typing this at work and I'd rather keep this thing private, so, for once, this will be quick. More later.

Seoul.

I got into Seoul yesterday and took various trains from the airport to meet my couchsurfing host, D. D picked me up from the train station at about 6:30 or so and we immediately met up with a few of her friends for a couple of beers. Afterward, we stopped by her place to drop off my stuff and then headed back out for Korean BBQ, which is insanely delicious, and, later, more drinks. There was a lot of drinking. The first bar we went to was called...no shit...The Ho Bar. Good times. The Ho Bar was pretty dead, being that it was Sunday night, so we had a few and then booked it out to another location. D's other spot was closed, but we heard some heavy bass invitingly being pumped out of a basement club. So, we dropped in. There were only a few people in there in addition to the DJs and the cute, head-bobbing bartenders. We ordered drinks and I hit the dance floor pretty quickly thereafter. I've been wanting to go clubbing in Tokyo for a while, but have been terrified of the expense...this was pretty much exactly what I'd been looking for. It was mellow, the music (mostly hip hop) was good, for the most part, and the drinks was reasonably cheap. Maybe expensive by Korean standards, a little expensive by American standards, but cheap as hell by Tokyo standards.

I drank a lot, I danced with a lot of girls, and I was hungover as hell this morning. D's friend wanted to do me, but I wasn't really interested and I really needed to get to the consulate today. Which I did. With a terrible hangover. It was satisfying to finally find the fucker after walking all over half of Jongno-gu, the neighborhood where it is located. It's kind of liberating to not speak any of the language, too. In Japan, I tend to torture myself trying to speak Japanese, and it's often frustrating and unrewarding. Maybe I should just be unrepentantly American all of the time in Japan, too.

Sooooo, anyway. My visa application is in, and I need to get back to the embassy by 9:30 tomorrow, which means that I need to leave by 8-ish with all of my stuff. I really, really hope that my visa will be ready, or tomorrow is going to be a long, undoubtedly frustrating day.

Tickets are purchased and I am ready to go.

I'm leaving tomorrow for Seoul, South Korea to pick up my new visa. My plane leaves from Narita International Airport at 12:55 tomorrow afternoon and I'll be touching down at Seoul Incheon International at about 3:30 or so. I will then navigate the Seoul train system to the home of my couchsurfing hostess, a nice Canadian girl named D. We'll go out for delicious Korean BBQ for dinner and then maybe a couple of drinks afterward.

Last night I went out in Tokyo and ended up, for some godforsaken reason, in Shimokitazawa. We started out at a nice bar in Ueno, and although it was nothing special, it at least had people in it...and a nice, non-cockroach infested ambiance (keep reading). One of my drinking partners for the evening decided that this scene was lame and that we should head out to Shimokita.

OK, big mistake. There is fuck-all in Shimokitazawa for nightlife. In fact, sadly, there's vastly more nightlife in my tiny hometown in Iowa than there is in this small Tokyo enclave. We ended up in a tiny, dingy, shitty little second floor bar. The big attraction, apparently, is the owner's record collection and the fact that he will take requests. OK, great. Fantastic. My new acquaintance, whose idea it was to go to Shimokita and the bar, neglected to tell us that the bar was also heavily infested with cockroaches. After I'd killed one with my beer glass and spotted another on the wall, I none-too-politely insisted that we get the fuck out of there. When the owner cheerfully brought the bill over, we were startled to notice that we'd apparently been screwed. I paid over $10US for one beer in a cockroach infested shithole.

Anyway, we then went to an izakaya (Japanese-style bar) and had a couple of beers and a lot of food. That cheered me up, but it still wasn't particularly stimulating. My roommate, Andrew, and I ended up on our own after the others went home and proceeded to stake out a room in a karaoke parlor. We sang bad karaoke for the next 2 hours, then caught the 5am train back to Ichikawa, and finally crashed around 7.

Soooo, anyway. Hopefully my exploits in Korea will be more amusing for me and less amusing for people who like hearing stories about me failing to have a good time. I do have an increasing stockpile of funny Tokyo stories, though, only a few of which are making it into this blog. I'll try to be more diligent. Korea update in a few days...