Ba-Ba-Big-Bang

So after the Golden week festivities I had a week of work then it was off to Chiba. Chiba is a city located close to the water near Tokyo. South east of the main city was my destination for the best concert I have ever been to. It took months of waiting and hoping but even after the earthquakes and tsunami's the concert was still on. With a change of name from love & pain to Love & Hope the concert was going to give tons of money to earthquake victims. The concert featured BigBang and was held at makuhari messe.This is BigBang.
This is a photo from the concert we were at. I went with 3 friends and 2 teachers who were the ones who introduced BigBang to me in the first place. We arrived in Tokyo snagged lunch and ran over to the tower records in Shibuya where there was a giant poster and a huge display of clothing they have worn and I picked up their new CD which is the first Korean CD to top Japanese music charts at number 1.
We ran into a forever 21 and shopped for almost 2 hours. There was a random Canada restaurant where I ate nachos for the first time in one year. The next plan was goods!!! It means merchandise/swag related to the concert. They were sold out that night but said at 12 the next day the would re-open so we made plans to head back the next day. We stayed at the maple hotel.
Goods line....Thats all I can say...I underestimated true fans ability to line up at the buttcrack of dawn waiting for stuff. In japan if you like a band it is difficult to just buy stuff relating to a group other than waiting in goods lines. When we got in line(we were an hour early) it was already 2 hours long. So we waited... and waited and waited. Luckily everyone was very calm and orderly. We had no water and chairs so we just stood there in line. As the line moved things began to sell out.(another problem with japan concerts) The worst was you had to wait for people leaving the line finished with their shopping to walk past you while you waited in line. There were plenty of sighs of いな！！(the sound of jealousy) By the time I got my stuff I thought I was going to die...
But swag was accomplished
I headed to the hotel and we got ready for the concert. We took the bus back to the concert hall and lined up in another orderly line. Once in we realized our seats were sweet and we just sat back and relax watching BigBang music videos. Security was a joke, conversation about camera:
Security man: Do you have a camera?
Me: Yeah
Security man: no use.
Me: Okay
Security man: ticket please.
Fair enough....
The concert started pretty abruptly and was awesome from start to finish. VI and Sol did most of the talking because they are the only ones who can speak conversational Japanese. Everyone was screaming and jumping and they sang every one of their best songs. I can't express how awesome it was. The fans were going crazy and BigBang was riding around on scooters and segways.
Here's the whole gang afterwards. We were exhausted because the concert lasted 2 hours. Highlight of the concert was :
VI: Amazing singer live, not sure how he sounds better live.
SOL: Being damn sexy and giving away his clothes at every turn.
TOP: He doesn't even dance anymore, he just stands there looking smexy.
G dragon: Leaping around like a crazy man even though he was injured and his awesome songs with Top.
D-lite: His solo song baby don't cry. Amazing!!! He is by far the best singer in the group.
Thus we headed back to Nichinan after the best concert ever!
more to come

Golden Week

Well golden week ended in a blur of events. I drove our whole Kyushu trip and about died doing it. Hours upon hours of navigation into mountains with the boxy mobile. The car was a bit too small and we didn't get too lost except in Kumamoto. First up was Yuifuin and Beppu where we hit up the hot spring town with plenty of sulfurous smelling water. It was cool to see blood red and bright blue pools of water. We also ate eggs that claimed to add 2 years to your life it you ate them. We spend the night in yufuin was was vastly different that Beppu. Where Beppu was large and busy, Yufuin was serene and quite. It was definately inaka, but our Ryokan was gorgeous with a gorgeous view. We had access to private onsens and had an amazing Japanese style dinner and breakfast. We headed out that rainy morning to Mt. Aso(a volcano) and arrived around lunch time. We were going to hike but the rain proved too much so we took a cable car to the top.
It was an awesome view point at the top and afterwards I had the local delicacy of Kumamoto Beef curry. That night we stayed in a cabin at the base of the mountain and slept on the flattest futon known to human kind. Although that place was very clean and neat. We hit up a random restaurant we I ate some omu-rice. The next day was the longest drive consisting of at least 8 hours of driving. On the way out we hit up a place called farm land in the middle of no-where. It had these pod like houses and pools where small fish could clean your feet


Once in Nagasaki we headed out for some shopping. We didn't make it very far because we were exhausted . We snagged some okonomiyaki for dinner and went to bed at the worst hotel I have been to in Japan. It was just old, but not dirty so I didn't mind too bad. We hit up the local spots the next day because we had two days in Nagasaki. First was a shrine where I got omikuge , its like a fortune from a shrine and this one happened to be in English. Note the top of the picture is cut off it says BAD LUCK!!
It was devastating but at least I could tie it up and dispel the bad luck. Next was glover garden established by a man of Scottish decent. It was beautiful and was packed. Except we went straight to the tea house because we were starving. We got a parfait and some delicious tea.

After Glover we got tons of castella cake. No joke we bought at least 10 boxes of castella between the three of us and then we proceeded to eat it. Its like a dense cake soaked in sugar and baked. Its the staple food of nagasaki along with champon ramen which I also ate. We headed to the peace park which was incredibly sad but very informative especially with the recent threat of nuclear problems. We ended the day in china town eating delicious foods and shopping . The restaurant we went too was highly recommended. The next day we headed to shimabara and took the ferry across the water to Kumamoto city.
Here there was a giant castle and it was a gorgeous day. This guy posed with us and I couldn't stop laughing because he looked like a host samurai.... We spent the rest of the day shopping and hanging out and spent the night in a super hotel. The drive back was terrible to say the least. We took a ''short cut'' sending us into the mountains for around 2 hours with little gas for the car. It was horrifying and I will post a video of it shortly. I was almost hit by an old man flying past us on a one lane road that was meant to two way traffic. good times. Got to Nichinan around 7ish and passed out later. And thus the swag
Other things of note were:
-buying a random watermelon in the middle of no where for $18 which is cheap.
-Random man in the massage chair room that we scared the shit out of, he bowed at least 5 times and left(he also had host hair). Also there was this creepy exercise rider machine(very questionable)
-Getting told to be quiet in our hotel room.
-There was a hole in the shower at the crappy hotel.

How to get a drivers license in Japan(miyazaki edition)

Okay,
This process is a real bitch. If you plan accordingly and follows every rule no matter how dumb you shall succeed. Nothing will make sense and you will receive no answers to your questions so just roll with it.
FIRST!! Make your appointments. You cant do shit without making sure their is perhaps someone where your going that speaks english. When I say English I mean awesome people who will try their hardest to speak with you. First I called up the driving center in the city and made a paper work check appointment. This is where all your information is double checked. You need two pics of yourself passport style but they are 30X24mm size you can get these at those strange photo booths all over the road sides.(who the hell needs passport photos suddenly near the shoe stores??)Alien registration card, Certificate of completion of alien registration(you can get this at you city hall in like 3 minutes), License from your home country, and \2400 for the fee. All set..

SECOND!!
Plan a whole day for this and they are only open on weekdays. Go to a local JAF your first day and get your license translated. Costs a bit of money but you just hand over your license and alien card and 30ish minutes later you have a fancy envelope. Later that same day go to your paper work check at the driving center. They will take all above mentioned paperwork and then ask you lots of questions about what you did to get your license in your home country. I'm from America, so they got a little confused about the issue date of my license. It says 2009 because I turned 21 and had to get a new license so I could buy boose. The under 21 license is vertical, while the over 21 is horizontal. So they thought I got my license in 2009, when really I got it in 2004. I explained to them why it got changed and all was well. They super cool guy that spoke with me was amazed I got my permit when I was 15 and took my driving course during school as a class. This took a while maybe 2 hours, but everyone was amazingly friendly.

THIRD!!
Wait a minute are you from the fabled cursed countries?? I mean the ones that actually have to take the driving test. My friend who went with me was from Canada and didnt have to take the test. All she did you visit the same driving center on day 2 and took an eye test and got the license. I curse thee.... Well I'm from America so I have a more expensive process to get my license. Step two of this process is the driving test.

--Driving Test--
Okay this was difficult not gonna lie. I do NOT speak Japanese and I am limited in what I can say and understand. I had my boe(board of education) call up the driving center and find me an instructor. Some poor soul agreed to tutor me for four hours on a Saturday. First of all you can only practice on weekends(saturday) and sundays have limited hours. So you meet the instructor at the actual course you will drive on for the test. Remember you have to pay for this per hour. Each instructor has his or her own fees and then their is a fee for the actual course. I will talk about this at the end. So you show up mee the instructor and get ready to drive for 4 straight hours. In Miyazaki there are two courses you have to remember. Course 1 and 2. When you show up for the test they will announce randomly which is the test of the day. You only need to drive one and pass it to get your license. It's difficult, my instructor laughed at me and called my Bruce lee. He told me I drive too fast, turn the wheel too fast, turn too fast. Please notice the reacurring theme. TOO FAST..You will not go over 24ish Kilometers per hour. Around corners you better be prepared to go slower than putting your car into drive and putting it into drive. Just chant slow the whole time. Hug the white line, don't hit the white dots, triple break, I verbalized in english what I was doing like saying check, okay or counting. You didn't have too but I felt better if they could see and hear what I was doing. There are real working lights on the course and there will be at least 5 other people driving around. I got yelled at for taking my hand off the wheel, having my hand at ten and two(I guess you should have them a little higher than that) and underhand turning my steering wheel. You have to remember the whole course, commit it to memory, but on the day of my test the instructor told me where to go in Japanese. After 4 hours I was still sketchy so I went back for one more hour on Sunday which was the best thing I've ever done. This day and a half of practice was done about 2 days before I went to JAF and got the paperwork checked.

Finally after all the planning and checking it was time for the test day. I got there when it opened at 8:30Am. I went back to the small room for a final paper work run through, then I immediately had to take the eye test. It's a box with C's facing in different directions and you tell the test giver which direction the C is facing, left, right, up or down. If you don't know directions in Japanese just point and thats good enough. Then I had to take a written test. For foreigners it was very simple and in badly translated English but nothing you can't manage. There were ten questions. Like, you should always wear you seat belt while driving. TRUE Just make sure to study your street signs before taking this test. The test is a little strange, but you'll pass. Now you can go out to the course to walk it. They will have announced which is the course of the day(for me course 2) and you can walk for about an hour before they start the actual testing.I did some vision training then waited with everyone else (maybe 25 people) then the test started. All the foreigners that day had to go together. I took the automatic test, which is much different than the manual test. I was assigned a test giver and then just waited until my number car came up. He will then tell you what order your group goes in. Yes other people will be in the back seat while you are taking the test. Ignore them, mine was some crazy Japanese man that became an America citizen and wouldn't stop talking to me. I was nervous as hell no gonna lie, but thats better for me. Nerves = Paying extra attention to detail. I need pressue but other people panic and fail because they are so nervous. Walk around the back of the car, look left and right when you get to the door. Open said door, sit down, adjust seat, close door, put seat belt on, move mirrors, start car, look at test dude and start triple checking you views, and go. I went around the course and the test guy had a sheet of paper that when I made a mistake wrote somethin on the map where i made the mistake. I made two at the beginning. Not being close enough to the white line, Im not kidding when I say get close to it. Finish the test, glance at the test guy, all he said to me is Ok, which means YOU PASS!!! sweet jebus I was happy, I stumbled out of the car and started dancing in the waiting area, didn't care passed!! Then you move to a different building where more money and paper work and tada! you have a license.

The break down:
3 days
roughly $400 USD =\40000 Sucks but the Japanese students pay \300000
Don't forget 2400for test fee and 2100for license fee.

Day 1- Driving practice with instructor minimum 4 hours Saturday and Sunday
Day 2 - JAF in the morning, Driving center paperwork check in the afternoon(make an appointment for the driving center, you can just walk into JAF)
Day 3- Driving test in the morning This all took 4 hours
Yeah it sucked but now I can stay another year in Japan

soccer at yowara

so I'm at Yowara Junior High and only the 1st and 2nd years are left. We played an epic Jeopardy game where I brought in the hayashi pin pon bu bu( just a fancy quiz buzzer with a great name). Teams lost others prevailed, but afterwards I remembered the promise I made last month. That I would play soccer with them. Of course I currently have a cold and can't breathe but whatever a promise is a promise. So I change into my soccer stuff a plain t-shirt with soccer zip-up, under shorts and even longer shorts on top, and tennis shoes. When I walk out one of the teachers sees me and yells Beautiful! I'm immediately stop and give a look of skepticism. Uh what? The teacher repeatedly says beautiful foot! Which leads me to more fake smiling and laughing. The word for foot and leg is the same in Japanese. So beautiful foot basically can mean leg of foot in Japanese. I was being complimented on my legs and how white they were...This is the only country this would happen. In America I might blind someone with how white I am now. Another teacher looks at me and bluntly says, "Maybe the will not play soccer"... I was like, "What?? I just got all dressed", Then she responds with, "Maybe they will just look at your legs." I laughed for a good ten minutes then went and played the strangest game of soccer ever. The goals were on the side of the field and we played in a kind of rainbow arching shape. It was hilarious.

Juku finish

Juku is finished and all the students have graduated so that means......I'M BORED. I now have tuesday and thursday evenings to myself and I don't know what to do. I am also finished at all of my schools for two weeks. So I have to sit in the office for two weeks with nothing but the internet and my imagination to console me. I'm gonna study Japanese, pretend like I'm being productive, possibly join a gym, create a list of stuff I want from America, and plan for next semester's juku. On white day I got lots of snacks and chocolates which I promptly devoured. Then on the 19th I went to Hyuga got lost and walked back to the main street which took 40 minutes. I scared the crap out of a random guy at a book store when I turned a corner to sharply and he smacked into the book shelf and spilled books everywhere. Then on Sunday I went to my students ballet recital and celebrated my supervisors birthday. I ate more food than I would have thought possible setting my stomach up for pain and agony. I have been tearing apart my house in an effort to clean it and reorganize it. I might destroy the wedge chair seeing as no one will sit in it. It's almost like its cursed. I'm gonna be here for another year so I want to be comfortable. A new couch should be a good option as well. This week is cherry blossom viewing and I'm going to go to the biggest bunch of them I can find and drink and eat. There are also lights for night time viewing and perhaps まつり foodstuffs. Yes, I am slowly but surely learning Japanese at a painfully low level. I know about as much Japanese as my 1st grade students know in English...sad day. But oh well I will keep plotting along. And yes this is my geeking out photo at bigbang 3-d

take a deep breath

Okay people here's a list for you.
1. earthquake(miyagi/sendai)
2. Tsunami
3. More earthquakes
4. Evacuations
5. Nuclear Reactor blows 1 time
6. Volcano Eruptions(this has been going on for months)
7. Reactor explosions two more times, 30k radius of contamination and evacuations.


Here in Nichinan there was only a 2 meter waves, and the sirens went off. The good news is that I now know my evacuation point and set up my emergency kit. First there were the news reports that just showed the facts here in Japan, but now America has gotten ahold of the reports and is sensationalizing them beyond all reason. It's bad, I don't want to belittle what I have never seen or experienced, but after 22 years in America I know what they can do to news. They go about reporting completely incorrectly. While Japan keeps saying everything is okay with the Nuclear reactors, I will use the words of a reporter here, It's like their babysitting the plants until they go, rather than actually containing anything. There's radiation all over this planet, in planes, x-rays, just living, I'm far enough away that I'm not too worried. It's business as usual here.

Busy

hallelujah Sweet jebus, I got the tickets, yes BIGBANG tickets. Sad that my life has been reduced to this? Oh well, I applied to 5 separate concerts and read all the reply emails one by one and each one rejected me until!!!!! Tokyo on the 15th of May in Chiba Tokyo. WOO!! I got my plane ticket, my hotel, and finally we have a full group of six to annoy Japanese fans with. Many of us are tall, or foreign enough that we will be the strangest group speaking half Japanese, and random English. My tallness will be an amazing asset to make sure I can see the best! I've been busy non-stop with school and planning because the Japanese school year ends in March. I'm pretty much on the last leg of visiting my schools for the last time this school year. Several of my schools are merging so I will be teaching at the new and improved Udo chu-gako.
On another note there have been many small earthquakes and the volcano ash has made a reappearance. Its pitch black this time and is great fun while playing jump rope on a windy open area. My journaling is making slow and steady progress and Ive managed to fill two big notebooks. I was scared that my art is declining so I have been drawing two large pics a day for 2 months and my contour drawing have gotten pretty badass. My woodcuts are slow progress. The wood is very expensive but amazing so I'm being very careful carving it for fear I ruin a $100 piece of cedar. I managed to make a comb and 2 small prints but it was un-preped wood and was hell to carve.
Golden week plans are complete!
Kyushu round about trip. Its the Holy grail of kyushu traveling.
1. Nichian leave
2. Beppu and Yuifuin- hot spring town have a sweet ryokan and all the hot water and sand baths we want.
3. Mt. Aso- Biggest volcano is the world. Gonna climb nearby and take the cable car to the top if its not spewing toxic gas
4. Nagasaki- Just hang out super historic and plenty of temples to hit up.
5. Shimabara- old town mostly going here for the car ferry. Giant buddah statue
6. Kumamoto- castel and a perfect mixture of historic and upscale.

Then drag our selves back to Nichinan. I'm driving the whole time which brings to information about my car.
Shakken!! the dreaded word was do this month on the 1st. First estimate of the cost \190000 almost died of a heart attack. Literally fell over. After panicking and getting two more appraisals got it for \70000 about $700. It needed alot of repairs but now its good for two years its basically my insurance. Google shakken for more info cause I hates it. Also with cars I can mention I am taking the driving test at the end of the month. I have about two weeks off because of school break so I'm gonna drag my American ass to the test from hell and try my damndest to not make a fool of myself. Knock on wood.
And just as I type this mayhem breaks out in my office because in Tokyo there was a 6meter tsunami after a 6.5 earthquake. Shit, all my schools are on the coast so the workers are all calling my schools because theres an alert out here.