Mad Japanese Weekends.

Its Sunday night and im waiting for my clothes to be spin dried....i think. Its making noises- but its not doing exactly what i want it to do. Thats the added "fun" bonus of having a reasonably hightech electrical appliance with kanji buttons.

AAaaaaaaaanyways- I detract. MAD MAD Weekend. A very expensive weekend, but nevertheless one filled with memories that I hope to treasure till at least the end of next week.

Saturday morning saw the early-than-usual rise of one Mr B. I had to get up and haul my tired self off to meet Okamura-sensei and Yamanaka-sensei for our morning tour of Kyoto. We grabbed some discount tickets and headed on our way. Now- for those of you who haven't had the chance to get to Kyoto station- its a huge imposing bastard of a building. Incredible to see.


Anywho- so we went off to see Kinkakuji- the famous Golden Temple. Yay. Thrilling. It was nice (but personally i preferred the nature and the garden around it. And the old style Japanese buildings. Sadly thats one of the coolest andmost tragic aspects of the Japanese culture. This culture was soooo refined 500 years ago. When whities were running around in loinclothes (not really- but almost) inthe dark ages- here you had these unbelievably equisitely designed houses and beautiful and polite culture. Really really amazing.


(Following paragraph has been added for sake of clarity after I received a very angry email 10/3)

The above statement is historically incorrect as the Dark-Ages were 900 years ago. As Ms A. so vehemently pointed out the Renaissance happened 500 years ago and with it some of the most influencial cultural aspects of makind. That's not the point I was trying to make when I made the comment about whities in loinclothes (yeah I know its not the case- hence the "not really"). The point I was trying to make was how impressed I was with the system and formality and ritual of politeness and refinedness (is that a word?) of the Japanese culture 500 years ago and how its sad that its not like that now or fading fast.(hence the mention of tragic aspects of Japanese culture) . It wasnt meant to be (nor did i think it was) a comment on cultural achievements, literary conquests, architectural marvels (Roman roads anyone?!) or whose culture is better than the others- it was merely a comment on the level of refinement of something as simple as making tea and the amount of detail that went into it aswell as the interaction of people involved in said venture. The mention of equisitely designed houses was also not a mention of the techinical ability (which im at fault for not clearly explaining) but more so the reason for everything that was made and designed to have a very specific role to play.
I shoulda made my comments less sweeping (and more historically accurate as far as dates and mentions of loinclothes were concerned apparantly) but I was impressed and saddened enough by these aspects to put it in my blog.


(edit: im falling WAY behind on my writing. I started this on the Sunday and im now writing almost 2 weeks later!)
OKay- fast track with the details. We went to a cool hotel after having the BEST okonomiyake and yakisoba ive EVER had in Japan. Good stuff- pity i'll never ever be able to track that restaurant down again. So the hotel was fun. We dropped off our shit- took an onsen (yay naked time with male teachers again) and rushed on off to have dinner with the others.

Now, Japanese are fanatical about dining and culenary ventures in general. We had to travel about 45 minutes to the restaurant. It was well worth it though...a BEAUTIFUL Japanese styled house. Obviously only serve one party at a time. You are seated in a room much like a house (it was a house...overlooking the lake i might add- very pretty) and are waited on hand and foot. The mama-san of the house looks after you along with the two serving girls (all in kimonos). I kinda have a new respect and understanding for the hostess culture.

We immediately think as westerners that hostesses are lower class and seedy. In Japan its SO different. First of all, the hostess doesnt have to and sometimes never does offer sexual services in any way (A lot do, to get extra benefits from clients but a lot dont). Basically this really atractive girl was forfilling the role of a traditional geisha girl (again common misconceptions of geisha and sex abound- nothing didgey). She was keeping the men company with her jokes and her personality all the time being impeccably well mannered and friendly (unusual for serving staff- the joking and friendly bit i mean, as ALL staff are well mannered usually).
Anyways kinda made me think that this is where the hostess culture stems from. valuable insight there.

Lowlights were eating small (about 8cm long) fish- head first. And funezushi. The oldest Japanese sushi (tasted like it!). It essentially tastes and has the same texture as cheese. Only its fish. Its fairly damn disgusting and I dont recommend it to anyone who doesnt have an undying love for both fish AND cheese.
Highlights- eating japanese goose. gamo/kamo - like a small duck? Yummy. The Japanese will eat almost anything. In kyoto i forgot to say I also ate tofu-bean icecream, tofu-bean donuts and drank tofu-bean coffee. Was amazing stuff.

The next day I met up with Colleen, the cute South African Jet from Jhb. Shes doing a lot better than she originally was (looking decidedly more Japanesey style wise). We went for a drink and a snack and just chatted. I'm not sure what it is, the sense of identity we feel on account of there being so few of us or what.....but South Africans are awesome. I mean specifically the ones ive met in Japan. I really, really enjoy their generally upbeat outlook on life in general and how they take things in their stride without bitching and moaning about it like the VAST majority of Americans i've met. Of course not all Yanks are like that- hey Ryan :P ?! But so many just whine and whine or make mountains outta molehills where as the guys and gals ive hang with for even a short time just roll with it and enjoy. Its a really great feeling.
Anways...more later.

Safricans !

Well, January saw my inevitable and sadly desperate return to Nippon. It was a tough, tough three weeks with the lass sadly. Anywho...upon my return to the land of the rising concrete I met up with a fellow South African. A fellow anime geek that would be living with me for the next week. A few days after that 2 more fellow SAfricans joined me for 3 weeks. All decent chaps. Personally i love entertaining people from my country, in Japan. They seem to pick up so many things that I either take for granted or just completly miss. Fine details like pink furry cow print boots on a random girl.

Anyways, IR, Belaklava man and Mfu were at Castle de la Pimp Pad for about 3 weeks in total. Much fun was had by all. It was interesting to see the effects of Japanese women on yet untainted souls. B-man fell fast and hard. Basically, with gaijin men being in demand he was able to meet a lot of people. More than im sure he would have if he was in SA. No disrespect intended at all- same goes for anyone in Japan really. But yeah. He met about 4 girls and wound up kissing one AND he's a shy guy. Crazy place.

So it was nice to have company and friends that can relate to at least some aspects of the cultural difference. If i get around to doing it i may post some of the pics up !

Lame entry- but its just a precursor to the next one !!! :P (isnt that a given tho? )

Weekend Madness.

Well, what a fun filled weekend it was. Things i did on my long weekend:
Went to Karaoke with some mates.
Went to an all night club in Osaka
Broke up with my girlfriend.
Cancelled on Ryan......again.
Had Sushi dinner with Ned and Megan and my "ex".
Watched Azumanga Daioh.
Played maaad BB gun wars in an indoor location in Uozaki.
Almost got blinded by friendly fire in the "safe zone".
Got into a car chase with the local police when the driver of my car (who was caught in a speed trap) did not stop for the cops and opted to make a break for it.

So, overall quite a fun filled weekend :|

Where to start ? Well...Osaka. Great fun. Rob and Richard and myself. Along with 3 girls I met online. Yes that sounds dubious. But allow me to explain !! I set up something on line for the S.Africans that were here (read further down) for 3 weeks. Just looking for cool people to go out with nothing dodgey or lewd. And a few people responded. One group of which were these young lasses. Strangely enough two of them had seen me before. I eventually recognised the one girl. It must have been well over a year back - which is really interesting. They used to work part-time in the Sweet Factory. I was wearing a Karate wind breaker that was made in South Africa (and had bad kanji on it). The kanji was kaze to ken which essentially means wind and fist (as opposed to the much cooler sounding kaze no ken which would mean fists of wind). Anywho- they said my name from then on was kazetoken no hito (the kazetoken guy). That was really cool to here (just a mild ego booster :P) Anyways, Yuko took a fancy to Rob, Rich took a fancy to Masako and I think Kazuko might have liked me- though im still trying to decipher what she was saying. (Poor girl didnt speak any english). I gotta admit that after 2 and a half years in Japan im still sucking a bit at judging characters. I thought i had them pegged from the first 15 minutes- but in the lat few days ive been proved very wrong. Anywho...

Next was the all night party. Osaka- Sam and Daves baby..Umeda. My favourite place in Japan. Why ? Fun music, a clean club, decent drinks and nausiatingly sexy women. Now...in the year that I dated M. I only went there thrice (for obvious reasons). Two out of three times of which were in the last month - as you may see the report from the other blog entry. Well- Rob succeeded in getting us thoroughly hammered by insisting on the consumption of Mexico's finest export. I politely declined on the 3rd round of said export, knowing that it would be horrible and i'd definitely wind up like Rich did the following morning. (Not to mention the possibility of doing something stupid, when at this time i was still with M.) Anywho- there was much drunkeness- I introduced two ladies to the boys (ever the pimp). We danced...the one girl got a bit freaky and thought that I was "hers" -even though I said i have a girlf (see "Monkeys in Trees"). bviously make clear it wasnt gonna happen . Foozball was played - Rob is a foozball shark. Heed this warning. He is also quite the playa..wound up kissing one of the two random girls that we met. (her ex boyf showed up later- perfect timing for us to make an exit). This was probably about the time Rich lost his wallet !

i'll fill you in on the rest later....