The weeks are flying by!

This one went by with ease as usual. There's something funky about Japan that's hard to put a finger on, a friend said it well when he said this place was like "neverland". I think it's a great example because things here usually feel pretty surreal. This week went by with the usually cooking every night and morning...unfortunately not too much studying until tonight but that shall change this week!

The weekend consisted of snowboarding!! Nagano on Monday where I met this interesting lady who can't be seperated from her dog...literally :P And mind you this is real although the dog is cute enough to be fake!


Ohh my god I couldn't believe it!!!! The dog looked scared out of his mind too I felt bad for the pootch, all that needed to happen was a sharp turn and he was done for :(

Here's a pic of me and my awesome friend Jonas taking the gondola up Sunday as well......


I like Jonas a lot because he always has a story for everything!!! He is pretty well traveled too!! He spent two years teaching in Thailand, while there he went to India and vacationed in Costa Rica and before that backpacked all over Europe. He is a little picky when it comes to snow conditions and just about everything else, but he blames it on him being so jewish lol.

On Monday(today) I went to Fuji-ten with another friend David. David is also an amazing guy!! Lived in San Fran before he and he plays bass having gig's just about every week. I believe I mentioned both of these kids in previous posts though. We had a lot of fun although it rained on us about the whole time :( He wasn't going to go because of the prices and horrible conditions but as I talked him in to paying as you go(about $4 per lift ride up)...we get all of our gear and two japanese guys say " ticket " lol I was so surprised it was in english!!! It turns out there were leaving and we bought their tickets for $10!!!! it was awesome I was so stoked, it really made my day!!

So we take a couple of runs, go back to his car and drink a little sake and had a good day! LOL and then we saw this sign and started cracking up!!


All in all it was a good weekend and then tonight my friend that does language exchange e-mailed me so I even got a little Japanese talk in there to add a little productive-ness to everything.

This week should go smooth...just the same ol teaching with a little exploring in there. Excited for the weekend, some good friends from Las Vegas are coming out and we're going to meet in Tokyo Sunday and then I should be going to Fujiyoshida to see my peep AJ unless she flakes and she always does(just kidding!!!!). Alright peeps take care i'll leave you with this new Q-Tip music video this guy is amazing!!!



Gettin Up

This weekend was interesting!

With that said it's hard to really start because for two days I did an incredible amount of stuff!!!

My weekend is Sunday/Monday too fyi. Saturday night chilled and went to a mexican restaurant, which was my first mexican in japan so far besides what I tried to make at my house a few times...it was alright and I really couldn't complain. Drinking a Corona got me a little nostalgic about bar-b-queing with my good friends in Las Vegas, since it was my first Corona out here as well. Sunday I went up to Nagano with some friends for the day to do some spring time condition riding.

There has been a strange warm front here the past couple of weeks...pushing the weather to seriously about 70 to 75 degrees during the day and just a little less at night. The weather was amazing...but it all stopped yesterday really and I was upset it didn't last while I waiting for my train which was delayed 45 minutes and made me miss a class too :(

With my shredding/progressing since last Wednesday(2/11) I have learned and stuck(landed) new tricks consistently enough to casually use them whenever I am riding rails and boxes. WHICH IS AWESOME! At nagano I was nose-pressing rainbow boxes all day( for you non-snowboarders that = balancing on just the front of a board with the rest of the board flexed on a wide rail made of plastic shaped like a rainbow, or as the japanese call it "arc" :P) and also frontside 360ing boxes toooo. All in all it was very fun and I was looking extra fly because my lady sent me some pretty rad gear!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After Nagano I showered and was on bus to Tokyo within 40 minutes of getting home. I wanted to get into Shinjuku around 8:00 so I could kick it with some other friends that were in the city and really enjoy myself. I went into Tokyo because I was actually in a commercial on Monday and needed to get in early because Kofu is friggin far away and the shooting for the commericial started @ 7:30!

So basically I threw a bunch of shit in my backpack and was off. UNfortunately with that stuff and the rush I forgot my camera & i-pod but whatever there's a camera on my phone and I could always listen to the sounds of the city riiight!!! I get in and meet my friend at the station, I told him to follow the sound of the weird Japanese punk band playing and sure enough...5 minutes later he tapped me on the shoulder in front of this weird punk band :p We went to Ginza to meet up with a homie I also got in on the shoot, had some beers said goodbyes and we went off to Chiba where they were going to have the shoot!

My friend David wanted to stay in a hotel with his girlfriend(understandable) so she(her girlfriend is Japanese) hooked me up with a reservation @ a capsule hotel place!!! I've never actually seend one of these places before and was oddly stoked to be staying in one. Partly because the last time I came to Tokyo, honestly everyone asked me if I stayed in one, and I told them to not believe everything they see on fast and furious 3...RIGHT!!!! Anyways here's a couple pics I took on my celly of the capsule I slept in...lol capsule 441~!!!!!!




I honestly could not have had a better time! In the morning I even woke up early to notice they had an onsen(hot spring bath) and steam room too!!! I was stoked!!! Monday I met up with my boy and we took a monorail( which was tight because it's basically a subway with the cable on the roof of the subway instead of the bottom) to Chiba Port Arina where the commercial took place. LOL They specifically told me not to blog about this so i'll respect until the commercial is out but it was for a new beer they're going to release and I got to meet a couple of pro athletes and just sit in a stadium and pretend to look surprised!!! I was actually in the front row so once it's released I'm hella gonna look for me!!! I'll try and get a copy of the vid too for you peeps!!!!

After that just chilled in Tokyo! Went to Rippongi, supposedly a really cool spot but other than sick architecture I think I need to come at night to really appreciate it. Went to Ueno park...which is a really big park in Tokyo. Met up with a friend in Sibuya and had a couple beers before I took off. It was another great weekend and am really looking forward to this week. Going to chill and really work on my Japanese, or so I say every week which amounts to little getting done. Hey!! at least I blogged !! lol I'll try and get some more pics up.

Don't think I'll be snowboarding because that warm front made for crazy springtime conditions and slush so I'm thinking everything right now is an ice cube until we get some fresh snow so I may be rock climbing over the weekend or who the heck knows I NEED TO GET IN SHAPE!!!!! Take it easy all!

I passed the 3 month mark!

And I'm looking more like a teacher everyday!!! Today I had to sub for a friend of mine who covered for me when I went to Hakuba. The classes were actually really fun and I'm really learning how to get people to take chances and not be afraid to speak English. It's funny though, just about everytime I learn a new word or phrase it gets incorporated into my lessons. I know I shouldn't, but I do use a lot of Japanese to try and teach. It's slightly frowned on by my company because I'm strictly an English speaker but shooooooot! These kids are really struggling and I help them out by explaining things in Japanese..or wheter try and explain it.

I think that's how I get them comfortable however because once I start speaking I obviously butcher just about everything but they know I'm trying to help them out so they kind of put that extra effort which makes things work. This Wednesday is a holiday so I get to go snowboarding!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This weekend I couldn't unfortunately because I'm stupid and spend my money on the wrong things :( BUT! Payday is tomorrow so things will be looking up! But look what I made with about $3 american munz



Ok AJ I know you're going to get a little upset when you read this or even see the pic because that cous cous is one of the boxes that my mom sent for you. So, thanks mom...and thanks AJ I still have another box with your name on it but shooot I was trying to cut corners and I'm broke :) But I promise I'll make it up to you. Anyways I did a little chicken with baby asparagus, carrots, onions, and garlic. The cous cous is indian curry flavored and tastes awesome!!!!!!!!! This coming week I'm going to try my hand at fish!!! Wish me luck everyone!

This coming month should be really exciting. My friend Andy and his girlfriend are coming to Japan @ the beginning of March so it'll be great to jet into Tokyo to meet up with them. LOL it's funny because I've heard of a lot of great mexican restaurants in Tokyo but I'm sure they'll just want Japanese food unfortunately but ohhh well I guess I can just make mexican food!!!!!!!!!!

Today I had my first language exchange. This is when I meet with a friend who wants to practice English, and I try to speak Japanese too...it went really well. I'm learning more and more everyday and some of my sentences are getting longer and sometimes I'm able to make jokes in Japanese! I even had a dream slightly in Japanese the other day too....LOL I was talking to my cousin who lived in Hawaii and he was speaking Japanese for some reason!! I realized it was a dream when later I was talking to my sister and she was in her car...then she drove away but her steering wheel in her civic was on the other side(ie passenger side). I was like damn this is a dream and I've been in Japan for too long :P



This is my latest bike!!! I got it for free too!!! Diggin the rims because all bikes in Japan look exactly the same...except mine!!!! Also with the bike I got a jar of homemade grape jelly!!! It's a bit of a story that I'm really lazy to tell right now but just another reason why Japan is great. OoooooK, basically I told a friend that my bike got stolen, she talked to a relative and told me that he can hook me up with a bike because he owns a bike shop. We go to their house, which is also a grape farm for wine, after he fixes the bike up for me we go in and have tea and as a parting gift the guys wife gives me a jar of grape jelly!! = w00t! People in Japan are soooo nice!!!! Anywho till next time I hope all is well !!!!!

Post Super Bowl

Ok,

So the Cardinals didn't win but at least nobody spoiled for me as I was the only person at the bar interested in the outcome of the super bowl. Luckily my bartender was awesome and made sure to tell everyone to shut up when they were talking about the game.

OOo....I also got my new bike which is awesome, I forget if I mentioned that in my last post... I'll be sure to put a pick up it's wicked sick. It has Turquoise rims!!! And I got it for free, I overheard that the person who gave me the bike his grandaugter is going to Austrailia in a couple months so I thought it would be nice to give a couple english lessons in exchange for the bike. Afterwards we did some tea and chilled it was actually really fun.

Also here's my latest omlette creation!!!



and finally teaching kids there body parts...this was pretty fun because everyone was afraid to be on the top!!! These are my Wednesday kids....they're actually annoying as f***!!!!



Anywho so this week I'm mostly going to be chilling. I have another language exchange next week, this one I didn't speak too much Japanese. The whole deal is I meet up with someone and we speak English for 30 minutes, then we speak Japanese for the next 30. But, this person asked me to meet them at the vault, which is my local bar while the Supe Bowl was on so I wasn't really in the mood to think :( But now I'm a little more driven and have a lot of time this week because I really shouldn't go out(because i'm broke) and I should really buckle down and start studying more.

Tonight I actually think I'm going to be doing some shrimp tacos with guac though so that should be exciting, don't worry if they're lookin good a pic will be up here shortly. Thanks to myspace I got to watch some of the super bowl commercials too. GI joe looks pretty cool but everything else wasn't too funny but ohh well.

Can't wait to go snowboarding again...I was talking to one of the other people that work at the bar and he said he was doin 540's over 15 meter kickers on Saturday, he said we'd be going next time so i'm pretty stoked to see how good this guy is.... iiiiinnaaaaaaa. LOL I think if we go though I'll work up the guts to try something other than a giant 180 over the kicker...we'll see though. I hope everyone is having a good week back home!!!!!!!! Take care!

Superbowl Monday!!!!

Well, that's just the way it has to be here. It's around 2 pm Monday afternoon, which means the superbowl is probably over and the winning team is giving speechs and what not. I've made it this far without spoiling the winner but who knows if I can do it the whole day. I'm about to go meet up with another teacher who is getting me the hook up on a bike. I forget if i mentioned this but last Saturday my bike was stolen from a bar. I didn't lock it though, but never have before...but don't worry I learned my lesson. This past weekend was great, went to Nagano again and has an awesome day. The night before it must have snowed about 10 inches so there was some nice powder but you had to go hunt for it. They also had a couple kickers(jumps) one about 30 feet and the other around 15. It was my first chance to hit jumps this big this season!

I was a little nervous at first because I really don't want to mess my shoulder up again but I never fell once the whole day actually ...wait no I did doing something goofy..just a switch 180. It's funny though the line to hit the jump takes forever so I try and kind of cut in, because everyone just friggin looks at the jump and I'm wondering why nobody is going. So the guy in front always lets me go ahead of him and I think I've perfected my bows while going pretty fast to people...it's a funny feeling actually :P Oddly enough it was the same guy a few times who happened to be the best guy in the park that day...he was doing backflip's with 360's at the end. Some of the guys here are nuts!!! Ok then another japanese lesson for the day

いいな = iina = I envy you, or I'm jealous

So quick example...he would do the backflip and I would say, " iiiiiiiiinaaaaaaa" I really like it because even when you say i'm jealous in english it always seems like there's a bit of envy, yet in japanese it's more of a good thing or, " you're lucky,I'm jealous."

Well I'm trying to upload pics of the day but something is acting up for the blog site. soon to come will before my latest cooking feat = pedthai along with some pics of students and what not.... stay tuned