Not Your Average Dodgeball....

Let me just say this…no competitive 24-year-old male enjoys getting his ass beat by 11 year old girls in dodgeball….

I was asked by a small group of 5^th grade girls to play dodgeball during recess. Before I knew it, they were screaming at the top of their lungs, and playing dodgeball like their lives depended on it. It felt less like a game and more like war... I was absolutely frightened! Not to mention I was completely confused by their crazy rules…WHY DID SOMEONE JUST HIT ME IN THE BACK OF THE HEAD WITH A DODGEBALL!?!

Immediately the competitive fire roared within. How could I possibly bring myself to throw a huge, heavy rubber ball at a small little girl as hard as I could? Well…let me tell you….its possible, but in hindsight it’s probably not the best idea…

Before I knew it, I had been swept away in the game and was absolutely pelting little children with a dodgeball (because they were pelting me!). At one point I absolutely walloped a 6-year-old boy who had fallen down in the dirt right below me. All the girls started laughing…the little boy wasn’t even playing the game…. I then realized I had let my competitiveness go a bit overboard as the little kindergartener walked off the playground brushing dirt off his clothes…

In the end, the girls had a great time, but I definitely felt like the loser. These are my shoes after playing for 15 minutes…

I think the shoes are quite symbolic of my pride and self-esteem after getting bossed by a bunch of 11 year olds.

If you ever get asked to play dodgeball in Japan, be prepared…

School Sports Festivals!!

The video is a chant of "white" group. (silly video got rotated...)

Sports day festivals in Japanese are....serious. They happen once a year, and the students train for weeks in preparation. from 8am - 3pm they compete against one another in the smoldering heat. Some of the games are truly awesome.

Like good ole fashion tug of war...

Yes, that's right... 200 foot rope so that 100 kids can tug their hearts out. They spare no age...everyone participates, and the kindergarteners get stuck at the front.

A battle to the end...

One of the more entertaining games is translated as "Calvary Battle". Three students hoist a classmate on their shoulders, and play the american equivalent of "chicken". These 4-somes of students all meet in the middle of a battlefield, trying to knock the helms (or hats) of the hoisted opponents off their heads. Once a hat is removed, the opponent is out.

They conclude with a team battle. Each side having a king with a samarai helm on his head. Each team has 9 calvary (4-somes of students) whose primary goal is to strategize with one another to defeat the king of the opposing team. It was AWESOME...

It started. RED team was aggressive and charged white immediately...but ended up getting surrounded and 6 of their calvary eliminated (white still had all 9 calvary....). Obviously, white then CHARGED red completely outnumbering them. The 2 remaining red protecting the king occupied 2 white calvary (who were soon defeated) while the red King samurai stood his ground. Surrounded and maneuvering trying to fight all of the white calvary at the same, the red king managed to defeat EVERY white calvary except the king. The last 2 standing...the RED king and the WHITE king...The RED king won. The whole place went bonkers knowing that the red King alone defeated the entire WHITE team...a small bit of heroism, I must say...

(the soon defeated white king)

Surely a day of sporting celebration...

Reversible Toilet Paper?

There's not much to say about this blog post... Would wouldn't want "SWEET TOILET TISSUE" thats "REVERSIBLE!"? Wait a second...have I been wiping my butt my whole life not knowing that there's a designated wiping side? Or is this reversible mumbo jumbo a marketing ploy...? A poor one at that I must say, considering no Japanese person in the whole state of Okayama knows what "reversible" means. Pink was a good choice color though. It communicates soft, friendly, and comfortable. That's what I look for when I go TOIPER shoppin'....

In the end I couldn't resist...I had to buy some....

The iPhone 4

Everyone’s heard about it... most have an opinion on it. Unless you’ve used an Iphone 4 yourself, you have no clue how unbelievably awesome it is. Here’s my summarized version of its amazingness..

Pros: It can do everything. Everything, I say. (nearly all blog these blog photos have been taken with it).

Cons: Battery life is wack, happy endings not included.

Its saved me buying a point and shoot camera, video camera, GPS, Japanese translator, electronic dictionary, and many other things. All of its amazing functionality is interwined into one amazing device. A small example:

I was at an Indian joint eating an amazing chunk of naan. Took out my iPhone 4 camera, snapped a photo, and instantly it dropped a 'pin' on the GPS mapping the restaurant and the photo I took. No matter where you go if you take a photo or video, the phone GPS's it to a personal map so you can always remember when and where media was taken.

And thats one of the 10,000 amazing things this little device does. Thank you, Apple. I'll never have to buy another product from you again...

(here's that Naan [with spinach Saag]!)

You can click here for link to the map of the restaurant! :P

Okonomiyaki, MMmmMM

I realize the majority of my posts revolve around food...but check out this massive heap of deliciousness for $6. Okonomiyaki...Its like a huge potato / noodle / seafood / vegetable pancake with BBQ sauce, cheese, and (optional) green onions on top. No more words need be spoken...

Work Paaaartyyyy!

Coming to Japan, the word ENKAI was new to me. It means, "party". I’ve been told a million time that ENKAI’s are the bees knees, and to expect nothing less than Japanese people who work hard and play hard, period.

City Hall hosted an enkai for the small group of us who live in the Izue district. The plan was bowling and yaki-niku (self-grilled BBQ meats). Quite excited the day it arrived, I headed to the bus eager to see what my first ENKAI had to offer.

As we BOARDED the bus, everyone was handed a bag of nuts, and as many beers as they could hold... wow.

At one point I started to sing “The wheels on the bus go round and round”. Everyone was entertained, but A) They weren’t school kids willing to sing nursery rhymes, and B) They had absolutely no idea what I was singing... Oh well, I thought it was pretty perfect. Snap another photo when all else fails?

A 45 minute busride later, 26 adults stumbled off a bus absolutely assholed ready to get their bowl on. May the drunkest man win...

Being....not Japanese... I feel like my alcohol tolerance gave me quite an advantage. I got a turkey right off the bat - 3 strikes in a row... and the crowd goes wild... Knowing that I blew my load early, it was only downhill from there. I ended up bowling a 171, which convincely disposed of the competition. What’s next...All you can drink, all you can eat BBQ meat, YEA!

Food was amazing, beer was amazing, drunk Japanese people were amazing. What’s life without a good ole ENKAI, eh?

Japanese BBQ!!

The day before classes started some Japanese lady invited us to her house for a BBQ. I fully expected it to be nothing like an American BBQ. What did we see as soon as we got there?

BAM! Shaved filets, and other delicious meats and veggies on a traditional japanese firepit. It was absolutely delicious. Soon moved to grilling other fun foods, but before we knew it, something untraditional happened...

To alleviate hell-like temperatures, they took a 10 foot piece of bamboo out and made a water slide for food!

Now...im 24 years old...and I ate food out of this for an hour until I about popped. I can’t imagine how much this must be for a real kid. I did realize, that through the course of the kids playing and eating out of this bamboo slide, that several of them lost their pants. Oh, the luxeries of being a kid...

Though this was a perfect time to take out my Iphone and shoot my first video. Whadya think?

After a long day of delicious BBQ...I got rocked by the lot of Japanese kids in WII. I’m not sure how I feel about gettin beat by a 4 year old in WII tennis... and bowling....

First Day on the Job...

I was told, as I walked into the school, that I would be giving a speech in about 15 minutes for the coming back to school ceremony. I about wet myself...Its one thing talking to head-honchos and politicians, but its another thing to address 250 kids. I mean...who knows how they’d react?

I walked into a huge hardwood room, and every student was trained like a soldier... Completely silent, arms length away each other, hands by their sides, staring straigh ahead. Immediately, I realized a fart joke was’t going to fly...

The principle yelled some blabber, told everyone to bow, then walked away...and left me staring at 220 kids whos eyes said “oh my god, you are a foreigner”. Awkwardly smiling, I sceamed in Japanese,

“HELLO EVERYONE! GOOD MORNING. MY NAME IS ALEXANDER, YOU CAN CALL ME ALEX. IM FROM MICHIGAN INSIDE AMERICA. I WANT TO BE A DIPLOMAT WHEN I GROW UP. I LIKE HIKING, BALLROOM DANCE, AND SPORTS, AMONG OTHER THINGS. IM REALLY LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS YEAR. ITS A PLEASURE TO MEET YOU ALL!

IMMEDIATELY after i finished my speech and bowed, the silenced was shattered by a kid in the second row VOMITING EVERYWHERE! (Allow me to include the sound effect: “BLEHAGARGHALAH”. ...)

“HOOOLY SH*T!”, I thought.... Why did you just puke kid? Am I...frightening or something? And why is everyone ignoring you? Shouldn’t a teacher like...help? And why did the kid you just PUKED ON NOT MOVE?! WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?

Conforming, I acted as if nothing (absolutely ridiculous) had just happened, and...walked away. After about a minute a teacher grabbed the kid and dragged him out...and everyone carried on (as if nothing happened.) Holy....moly.... I’m sure I’ll never really get an answer why my speech made this kid ralph a liter of milk all over his classmates and the gym floor. Sorry, sport...

After that, the day was full of ... everything you’d come to expect from being the only foreigner in a huge school of kids raised on the top of a mountain. Yes, more adventures for a later blog..

Retiring home many hours later... I got a real taste of what Bisei (Beautiful Sky) is all about. I saw perhaps one of the most vibrant sunsets of my life (taken on Iphone).

Very quickly I realized how this mountain had earned its name...