Sticky Hair, Burning Stomach, Perfect Combo

One day I was sitting in my condo watching Japanese TV.
My girlfriend used to always say, “I don’t like to leave you alone, because every time I do you come up with stupid ideas”. If I ever gave her lip and asked for an example she would make me a list (which were always true). Most of the things I came up with I thought were smart at the time, but once I did them I realized they were daft mistakes.

Don't fall. Use those muscles. At least he has a spotter.

One time I heard if you put coke in your hair, it will dye it naturally. Seemed like a good idea, but my hair got all sticky and the coke dripped from my hair all over the floor. Our condo was sticky for months. I remember her on her hands and knees more than once scrubbing (sorry).
Another time I thought it was a good idea to put a door hanger on my outside door that said my name in Japanese. Only the thing was I didn’t use the alphabet for foreign loan words for my name (called katakana). I used hiragana, which is a native Japanese alphabet only for Japanese words. I didn’t realize that my name could have a separate meaning in Japanese. We stopped getting mail from the post for a while. I couldn't figure out why until a Japanese friend mentioned that my door said I was never home. I said what do you mean? That’s my name. He said but you used hiragana, so they would think you are leaving them a message, “I'm never home”. That was dumb, at least inadvertently. At least my vocabulary was expanding.
My next ingenious idea came to me while watching TV. Infomercials always suck me in. I never buy anything from them, but if I think its a good idea I go do it. If they have an infomercial on organic honey, I’ll go buy the cheapest honey I could and drink a litre of it. I do remember one time them talking about the benefits of honey, saying it has magic healing powers and been used since the time of the ancient Pharaohs. I'm not sure this counts as well for the cheap stuff which is just basically glue mixed with sugar. But it tastes good at least.
This one particular day as my girlfriend was out, there was an infomercial on garlic. To be precise it was on garlic pills. They were explaining how good garlic is for you and that it has magical healing qualities. It also kills bacteria and is good for circulation. Each bottle of pills was about $80 (8000 yen). The advantage over eating garlic cloves was there wouldn't be an issue with the smell. Fair enough, but not worth the $80 to me. I'm frugal and that's a waste of money, so I kept thinking of an alternative cheap way to do it.
I came up with a great idea (I thought at the time). I would eat raw garlic cloves. And by garlic cloves I meant two full bulbs. I also did this on an empty stomach. More power of the magical qualities I thought. If you know me, you know I have a weak stomach, so this was perhaps not the smartest plan for me, nonetheless I decided to see it through.
I ate two bulbs (heads) of garlic. Yes, it burnt a bit as it went down. My tongue tasted a bit fiery.
I enjoyed the rest of the infomercial and thought about all the health benefits I was about to have happen to me. As my Japanese friends used to use the odd Japanese-English expression “It’s enjoy”. So "its enjoy" I did.
About an hour later, I felt like I had eaten battery acid. My stomach felt like it was turning inside out. The timing was perfect because my girlfriend had arrived home as I was moaning in pain. “What did you do this time?” she asked. I told the story as I moaned like a little girl (what else is new). Suddenly as if a thousand needles shot into my stomach & esophagus at once, I could feel my stomach twisting in revolution (or perhaps revelation). I ran for the bathroom and out came my cloves of garlic, in a slightly acidic form. The smell was terrible. It was even worse when the vomit came out my nose. It burned like a jalapeño pepper! I laughed and vomited at the same time. It was like riding the teacups at Disneyland for the first time, but on steroids.
As the pain from my stupidity halted my girlfriend decided to end with her two cents. 
“So what did you learn?”, she asked.
“I guess next time I should eat something before eating raw cloves I guess”, I answered.

Go! You should be OK. Don't do the splits though.

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Other funny stories from this blog 
http://memoirsgaijin.blogspot.ca/

My blog about everyday life (not Japan related)
http://eyethroughtheglass.blogspot.ca/


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Funky Skin Rashes and Ancient Languages

Funky Skin Rashes and Ancient Languages

I think I did upload it, or at least I did do other pics like when I had a purple toe and black eye.

While in Japan I got some funky skin rashes. It’s called athlete’s foot in English, but in Japan they called it “mizu mushi”, which basically means water bug / insect. WTF? I have a water bug in my skin. Then I looked it up and the other word in English is ringworm. I guess the Japanese word is true. Its basically bacteria on the skin that starts doing the funky chicken or perhaps  in our case the funky worm.

I wasn’t sure how I got it, but I was rolling around doing judo groundwork with a lot of questionable people. I hoped it was from me wearing sweaty socks all the time including in winter, where I wore 3 pairs at once to stay warm.

According to Wikipedia athlete’s foot is a fungus and will grow more rapidly in the following conditions
1) Crowded or Humid conditions. That's me!
2) Sweat excessively. That's me!
3) Participate in close sports like wrestling and soccer. That's me!
4) Wear tight constrictive clothing with poor aeration. That's me!
5) Have a weakened immune system. Hope not!

I think I met 4 of the 5 best conditions for it to grow. Number 5 nope, at least I hope anyways.

Summer seemed to be the worst though, that damn humidity never lets up. I saw all the teachers wore socks inside, but sometimes I was so sweaty, I took them off. I’m sure they were horrified.
But what else is new? I did wear underwear (despite what you may have heard through the rumour mill).

I finally decided it was getting progressively worse so I went to the doctor. The Japanese doctor looked at it and said you need to go to the skin doctor.
So, off on my jolly way I went.
It was my first time to a skin doctor. I had never been to one in Canada either so I wasn’t sure what to expect.
I envisioned a room full of people with goiters on their necks (big huge weird balls of skin).
When I arrived I found a room full of people waiting. It had a very “countryside” feel to it.
A girl looked at me, “Mama there is a gaijin (foreigner) here”. I contemplated responding “Ya and I understand you.” But, alas I decided against it.
My name was called from the front “Mr.Gaijin”. I was like ummm that’s not really my name but OK. I entered the room where a chipper older Japanese doctor sat. He had a big smile on his face, like he was happy to see me.
“Konnichi wa Mr.Gaijin. Do you understand Japanese?” he pondered. “Well, yes a little”, I answered. He looked even more happy. “You are the first gaijin to my office. I am happy to meet you. Are you American?”. “No”, I answered. “Oh, where are you from, perhaps a Brit?”. “Ahem, no, I’m Canadian”. He seemed to think about that for a minute like it didn’t register. Finally “Good. That’s good, let’s have a look at your hairy gorilla like skin”. No! He didn’t say that, but I think it would have been funny if he had.
He started inspecting my skin with a magnifying glass. He then grabbed a knife and my foot and locked it between his legs. I had a feeling he was about to filet my toes. Instead he grabbed my foot and scrapped a bunch of skin from my foot. It was pretty painful, but I tried to keep my mouth shut..
He took the skin fragments and looked at them with his high powered microscope.
“Ah HA!” he yelled. “Just as I expected, its Tinea pedis”. I was like “Sorry, what? Tina who?”. As far as I recall I don’t remembering doing judo with anyone named Tina. He seemed surprised I didn’t understand and handed me a book of skin conditions, it had Japanese on one side and some weird language on the other. He pointed to it, “Here it's written in English”. I was like ummmm….. I wasn’t sure what it was, but it sure wasn’t English, maybe Polish or Russian I thought. After a minute I realized it must be Latin cause it had roots of things that never made sense to me like “magnus” “corporis” , “malus”, “Ginormous”. That last one I added in myself, I was just trying to go with the flow. In-case you didn’t know ginormous was recently added into English dictionaries due to its popular usage on the pop culture scene.
I finally told the doctor “Actually its called Latin. English does have some roots in it, but I don’t speak or understand it.”. He looked baffled. “Do you mean you don’t speak your own language?”, he asked. “No, I do. Its just that this is not my language. I mean it did add words and stuff to my language but its not my language”, I answered.
As always I don’t think I did a great job of explaining it to him. He seemed baffled.
Being the smart alleck I am, I thought I would give him a great metaphor. “So you speak Japanese right? Japanese characters came from Chinese, so if someone shows you something in Chinese they might think you speak Chinese, but probably you can’t read it, well to a degree you can, cause the base of the character meaning would be the same”. Blank stare on his face. Then, “ I don’t speak Chinese”, he answered. I didn’t know how to answer him, I had done a piss poor job of explaining it to him, what else is new.
He started writing something down and told me I would need to take oral medicine five times a day. That’s annoying I thought. In Japan they always give low dosages of medicine, and most foreigners find it quite weak. Most books for foreigners coming to Japan recommend bringing your own medicine, half of our medicine is banned though, be careful.
He looked at me and said “If you don’t take care of the tinea pedis it will become tinea cruris”. 
Crap! He definitely did not comprehend I didn’t speak Latin.
I asked him to write the words down so I could perhaps look through a Latin dictionary later (if I could find one, maybe in the Vatican?) to decipher his dead archaic language.

I looked up the word later, it said it meant jock itch.
NO THANKS I'LL PASS!

I started bathing my feet in vinegar everyday cause I read on the internet, it helps cure it.
My girlfriend commented a few times it smelled like “sushi rice”. Ha!
I don't think anyone wants to eat rice that has touched my feet.

If I ever go to a make your own wine place, I'm not drinking the wine I crush with my bare-feet.

Let's see. Doesn't look that hard to understand. Latin is the same as English right?

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My Youtube Channel, wearing red tights and jumping around as Deadpool (but I say Dadpool to avoid copyright. Smarter than I look!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUXxArlapy0

Other funny stories from this blog 
http://memoirsgaijin.blogspot.ca/

My blog about everyday life (not Japan related)
http://eyethroughtheglass.blogspot.ca/


My Youtube Channel (makes no sense just like my blog)
http://www.youtube.com/user/judoka4eva

Watch the Trainwreck its Coming! Can't resist!

Or maybe the title should be


Old Dogs Can't Learn New Tricks!

Spraying students hair black. Lots of spray cans used each month.

One day one of the English teachers was messing with some spray type cans outside the school. You know the pressurized ones that can explode if you hit them too hard. Or if you hold a match up to it it becomes a flame thrower (not that I’ve ever done that, maybe). Well I saw him with a hammer and nail in his hand so I knew it was going to be good. I read the can, and on the side said deodorant hairspray.
He held down the can with his foot and hammered the nail in. I wasn’t sure what I was about to witness but I knew I was going to laugh and couldn’t miss this for the world. As he nailed it in, the deodorant spray came out and started spraying everywhere like it was a hose on full blast. It at first sprayed him in the face and I started laughing, then it continued to spray him on the shirt, pants, hair, eyes etc. His glasses were dripping with it. Awesome I thought.
So I was trying not to let him know I was laughing by biting my finger saying “Oh boy, that’s too bad I hope you are OK”. He starts swearing and saying kusai! Kusai(it stinks)!! Then he yelled in English "This is very stinky!", I was thinking dude you can say that again. I could smell him from 20 feet away. He literally hit the nail on the head! He smelled like an old lady after too much old perfume trying to cover up the smell of her oldness.

Fixing an umbrella? Usually I throw them out. Privacy for kids.

Usually you would think a person learns from their mistakes. But then there are always those that don’t. After all who am I to judge? I recall catching bees in my hands until they stung me plenty of times as a child. Yes, as a child, with time I learned. He took the second can out and hammered it and the hairspray got him right in the glasses he had just washed off. The can sprayed all over the place moving around as it sprayed everywhere.
When he entered the staffroom again, he smelt so bad. I couldn’t stop laughing. If only I had it on video! That could have been a new addition to YouTube and got a million hits.

If you found anything above amusing or even slightly funny help me out and click one of those boxes above or give me a Google +1 or something. Might come in handy in the future. If only it could make me some money. That would be even nicer!

Other funny stories from this blog 
http://memoirsgaijin.blogspot.ca/

My blog about everyday life (not Japan related)
http://eyethroughtheglass.blogspot.ca/


My Youtube Channel (makes no sense just like my blog)
http://www.youtube.com/user/judoka4eva

Camping in Floods, that sounds fun!

Camping in Tsuruga Japan
Paradise or hell?

Camping in Flooded area, That sounds fun.

I went on a camping trip with my friend Anthony (also Canadian), Chiaki (who is a girl that speaks many languages), my girlfriend, Anthony's girlfriend and Chiaki's friend (don't know her name but she was silent and allergic to the sun, yes to the SUN!). So I heard the beaches (maybe bitches too) were super hot in Tsuruga. That sounded nice since Chiaki and Anthony's girlfriend had a car. It was a relatively close drive. The idea was to go there, and then go to some awesome campsite not too far away from beach (and the bitches). Well, it sounded great in theory (especially the bitches).
The trip there was OK, I was in Anthony's girlfriend's car. As I recall nothing that great happened in the car, except that Anthony's girlfriend was loving my jokes (which are not too funny as you probably already know based on my writings on this blog). Anthony later told me his girlfriend kept saying she thought I was hot. I was like uh OK. He said she never shuts up about it, which I guess explains why she laughed at everything I said including directions. "Turn left soon". Her response "Hahaha you are so funny." I was WTF, its a direction not a joke.
Finally when we got to the beach, it was beautiful except for the wood chips and small sticks and other crap floating in the water (I didn't see any bodies but there could been, it was cloudy).

The water was covered in debris. At least it looked nice here

Apparently there had been a major flood and it dumped this crap into the ocean. The beaches were also covered with with wood-chips, sticks etc near the tide line. The beaches would have been paradise if not for the weird things on the beach. There was a large number of Brazilians there though, sleeping in tents on the beach. They seemed a little scary. When I thought about it they probably liked us more than the Japanese on the beach. My reasoning with this is that the Japanese probably thought the Brazilians were weirder than us. On the other hand, the Brazilians and us had a lot in common being foreigners. We were both outsiders, and didn't fit into the cultural norm. I believe that them sleeping on the beach was a cultural faux pas. 

Sorry no bikini babes. I save those for me ;P

 So after playing on the beach, burying Anthony as deep as we could like he was a sandcastle and such, we decided to go to the campsite.

When we got there, it was mass chaos. The whole campsite was wet and covered in logs and weird crap. It was like the beach only worse. I forget the exact price but I think it was like 100$ a night. I remember Anthony asking me to ask for a discount, which the guy laughed at and didn't do of course.

So we start to setup our tents. Anthony had bought a tent just for this trip, I think it was a two man tent. By two man that meant two small Japanese men, not one large foreigner and his girlfriend. Chiaki had a 5 person tent for Nancy, me, her and her friend.

At night after millions of mosquito bites we went to bed. Since I had been in the ocean and my skin was all salty I decided to shower. I guess that was the wrong choice because there was no hot water, which I didn't know until I was standing under the shower head and pulled. It felt like I was taking a shower on top of Mt.Everest. It was so cold I couldn't close my fingers or rub the soap properly. To complicate things there was no privacy really as the only area the shower covered was a 4 inch area crotch height. I have no idea how girls took a shower without exposing their bosoms. Based on how cold it was, they probably sucked it up and didn't shower. Ice showers are terrible. I kept thinking at least once I get into my cozy sleeping bag I'll warm up, its not like I want to get hypothermia.
As I got in my sleeping bag in the tent I tried to think of something warm. The only bad thing was that after about 30 minutes it started to rain. Earlier we had been saying, "Its such a nice day, why would we need a rain guard". I'll tell you, from now on I'm always putting a rain flap on.

I guess Anthony's tent wasn't made for the white devil gaijin (foreigner) cause he couldn't get comfortable. He told me later his feet were actually getting crushed by the frame of the tent. I did see his feet sticking physically outside of where the tent ended. He was bending the tent by having his legs straight. He claimed he didn't sleep a wink, but that probably wasn't because of that. More likely his girlfriend wanted some McLovin'.

So my sleeping bag sucked and was too short, so at first it was a hard sleep. Then, after some rustling, I was able to enter la la land. Then suddenly, I awoke to being drenched in water. As I slept, the rain came down and drenched me. In addition the ground was wet already and we had put our tent in a really bad spot where the water would all collect on my side. It felt like a river was washing over me. I tucked myself in the fetal position and tried to sleep. But there was no hope in that cold dark place, soaking wet. I started to hallucinate I was in a dungeon. The tent was leaking from the inside and there was a drip like Chinese water torture upon my brow. So my face was covered in freezing water and the puddle in the tent was getting bigger and it wasn't just me getting wet. I tried to sleep through it, but its like peeing on an electric fence, it won't work. Finally Chiaki says "I'm soaked, lets put rain cover on tent". I said OK, and as we fumbled in the dark for the tent zipper, but I couldn't find it. I guess Chiaki had put her head in the doorway and I didn't notice so when I yanked the zipper really hard her hair got stuck. I didn't realize I did it, but her head was sideways and she seemed to be moaning. Since she didn't say anything I kept yanking the zipper back and forth and it seemed to be stuck on something. After 2 minutes or so she told me her hair was stuck in the zipper and asked if I could stop moving the zipper up and down. It was tearing her hair out. I started laughing cause it was so ridiculous. At that point everyone else in the tent was woken up by my laughing. Then for the first time I noticed clumps of her hair in my wrinkly and wet hands. I tried to pull her hair from the zipper and the tent caved in! It was terrible! The whole roof fell down. Not only was her hair stuck in the zipper but I couldn't get it out. Finally I grabbed the roots of her hair and I said "Listen, I'm going to try to save a bit of your hair my holding it at the roots and ripping the hell out of the zipper. This may hurt a little." Thinking back I should have told her "Going to hurt a lot, like a real son of a bitch".

Finally her hair came loose, but I lost a bit more in the zipper, possible pieces of her scalp-line too. I didn't notice till the next day but there was a patch of hair missing where I had torn the roots from her skull. If you are reading this, I still feel sorry about that. 

We stepped out of the tent and it was raining hard and freezing cold. 

We re-erected the tent and went to bed soaked. One of the worst nights of my life.

I guess the only person's worse was Chiaki, aside from the pain, she didn't even have enough hair to keep her warm anymore. Damn!

That's what I wanted to do after the camping experience. No sleep = total suck

If you found anything above amusing or even slightly funny help me out and click one of those boxes above or give me a Google +1 or something. Might come in handy in the future. If only it could make me some money. That would be even nicer!

Other funny stories from this blog 
http://memoirsgaijin.blogspot.ca/

My blog about everyday life (not Japan related)
http://eyethroughtheglass.blogspot.ca/


My Youtube Channel (makes no sense just like my blog)
http://www.youtube.com/user/judoka4eva

Arrival to Nagahama as part of Jet Programme!

Arrival to Nagahama, Shiga Prefecture Japan.
Yeah!

Nagahama dark green on the lake.

When we first arrived in our new city I was quite excited. Despite being a new environment and not knowing anyone well, I felt like it was a party. Well the party hit reality when I got to my new apartment. It was barren as the dessert and it smelled like paint. There was a tatami room(Japanese reed mats), a normal western style living room, a kitchen, and a tiny shower/bath. The shower/ bath seemed like a plastic box with a small sink beside it. The toilet was tiny in a room with a metal door with grates you could see through. Strangely it opened up to the kitchen. I thought it seemed like a weird place for a bathroom. Enjoy your food with some wonderful bathroom smells, mmm tasty!
There was also one large spare room as well with what looked like wooden floors. Lastly, there was a fridge in the kitchen with nothing inside. At least it was clean.
The smell of freshly painted walls was a little overwhelming at first. I imagine if you take a balloon of nail polish remover and stuck your head in it, that’s what it smelled like. On top of that the heat, oh the heat! If you could imagine the fires of hell that will partially explain to you what the heat of Japan is like. It penetrates your entire soul. Its so humid that when you come out of a shower and feel fresh as a daisy, you are immediately covered again in a sticky sweat. So imagine this heat and you think the only way to escape it is to hide in your apartment. The only problem is the smell of the paint mixed with the heat from hell is killing you. The heat makes the smell of the paint 10 times stronger. I was probably partially high during that first week now that I think of it.
Because I’m a social cat, I asked the other newbies from the building if they wanted to come over for a drink. I didn’t realize it at the time but none of us were drinkers. It seems funny now that I told everyone to drink. If I knew no one was a drinker I probably could have said let’s have a P and P party, pop and pizza. Although we’d have to replace pizza with something else, as Japanese pizzas usually consist of a 1mm crust covered with tomato sauce with corn on it.
We all sat down at my place in the living room inhaling paint fumes. That may have been what helped make it so much fun. Because I didn’t have any furniture most of us leaned on the walls(probably covering our clothes with paint), and a few in the center of the room. One guy let’s call him Mr.C was from Texas. His glasses were kind of coke bottle glasses. If you don’t know what they are Google it. They are basically thick glasses and look like they are made for comic effect. We found out Mr.C’s father was an optometrist. When one of the guys found that out he kept saying to me in private “If his father is an optometrist why would he make him wear those glasses? Has he ever heard of Lenscrafters?’.
After mentioning to everyone to be careful and not spill anything since this was my new apartment the worst happened. Mr.C split his drink all over my new floor. It may have been his glasses were too thick and he couldn’t see the floor, but that’s up to debate.
The floors themselves were quite odd. The looked like hard wood but when you walked on them they were not. In fact on top of whatever substance it was it seemed to be a layer of plastic film. Looking back on it now I think it kind of a linoleum that was coloured to look like hard wood. The weird thing though was the film on top of it. I’ve never seen that in any other country I’ve traveled to. When you walked on it, especially with sweaty feet, the plastic would tear itself off from the hardwood looking layer. I would often be pulling off chunks of plastic film from my feet. It was particularly hard to pull off when your feet were sweaty in summer and every step you take you feel like a plastic layer, or the skin on the bottom of your feet is about to peel off.
Mr.C’s spilling of alcohol and pop on the floor seemed to be like a corrosive acid to the plastic film and hardwood floor looking layer. I worried that the first day of this place and I’d already be dinged for damage deposit! Snap!

Our apartment "High Life". I'm not sure that was a good description.

Our apartments a collection of of 18 units was called “High Life Morii”. And yes, the side of our building actually had the words written in large letters “High Life Morii”. I can’t say there was anything high about it other than the smell of the paint in my unit. As for the Morii this referred to the older man Mr. Morii that spoke no English who owned it. Ironically for a person who owns 18 units he rented out 12 of them to foreigners. I often wondered if the city somehow tricked him into doing that. I often saw him dealing with problems that the foreigners were causing him. More on that later.
When we finally managed to dwell outside our foreigner kingdom castle (which had 2 sides covering it by rice fields) we ventured into the city to find a supermarket. We found a large supermarket and department store nearby called Heiwado which Chinese characters meant “The Peace Store”. Its symbol being 2 white doves. I wasn’t sure if I was about to walk into a place selling peace pipes or the Salvation army, but it turns out it was just an innocent name.
I had some stupid idea that when I moved to Japan I would start cooking amazing Japanese foods. Well first of all I don’t cook. Other than toast or cereal I don’t know how to cook a thing to save my life. As we entered Heiwado I looked at the fresh seafood section. For some reason my brain kept saying “Get something unique to Japan”. Well, not entirely unique to Japan but definitely cheap and something I wouldn’t ever cook at home, I saw octopus. How do you cook octopus? I had no idea, but I figured I’m in Japan I’ll have the motivation to find out. I picked up the biggest fattest tentacle I could find and threw it in my basket. Mission accomplished I thought.
I put that tentacle into my brand new fridge and left it there for over a month. I don’t know if there was an expiry date on it, but either way I didn’t care, I figured at some point I’d use it. After that month I realized there was a strong rotten fishy smell coming from the fridge. I wasn’t sure what to do so I didn’t investigate, instead I’d get in and out of the fridge as fast as possible. It was only when my girlfriend came from Canada that something changed. When she first entered the apartment she made a comment about a fishy smell. I was like “Oh hmm I don’t know what it is”. When she opened the fridge a few hours later she did a CSI investigation and realized that it was the month old tentacle. She threw it out, entirely scrubbed the fridge down and then put a special Japanese fridge deodorizer(similar to baking power) into the fridge. I would end up hearing complaints about the tentacle for another 3 years. She claims it still smelt after that time. I apologize to any future tenants of that apartment who may be using that fridge. 

If you found anything above amusing or even slightly funny help me out and click one of those boxes above or give me a Google +1 or something. Might come in handy in the future. If only it could make me some money. That would be even nicer!

My Youtube Channel, wearing red tights and jumping around as Deadpool (but I say Dadpool to avoid copyright. Smarter than I look!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUXxArlapy0

Other funny stories from this blog 
http://memoirsgaijin.blogspot.ca/

My blog about everyday life (not Japan related)
http://eyethroughtheglass.blogspot.ca/


My Youtube Channel (makes no sense just like my blog)
http://www.youtube.com/user/judoka4eva

  

The Scooter and The 3 Idioteers!

Accidents aren't usually funny, unless they involve someone getting hurt and its not me. Well, the accident the other day was a bit of both.

I bought a scooter for about $300 American. Seemed like a good deal, but it has a few holes in it, it has been in an accident or 2 but I thought it seemed OK. As long as the holes aren't in the gas tank, or I’ll be throwing money away. hahahhaha holes in the gas tank, that would be funny. Leaking behind me as I drive, it could be like in a movie I just need someone to light a match on my gas trail. Cool... until I blow up.

Not my exact scooter but similar "puke" green colour.

Well the girl I was buying it from was there, and she said I should drive it once to try it out, so I went around the parking lot as slow as I could, not only to not embarrass myself as I’d never ridden a scooter before, but also cause if there was some problem with it and I didn’t like it I better not damage it.

Later in the day I saw 3 Gaijin English Teachers hanging out. TR, Matt and Nick who asked if they could try it. Sure I thought, what’s the worst that could happen. Let me tell you from experience you should never think that way. Upon taking the scooter out, I turned it on and didn't turn the wheel away from the fence. As I gassed it, I accelerated full speed into the sharp fence and my leg got stuck between the fence and bike. I couldn't remember where the break was and kept accelerating. So I cut my leg, my hands were crunched into the fence and the bike kept going. I see the neighbours behind the fence went inside, possibly because they thought a Gaijin had just been released from the insane asylum. Maybe they were right. I was very embarrassed but laughed it off. They were all laughing too.

Nick asked for a go on it. He grabs it and does it a little turn, then all the sudden he accelerates at full speed and pops the front wheel into the air, it was completely vertical. I was thinking that is so funny, man he must be really good with this thing to feel confident at controlling it like that. Who in their right mind pops a wheelie(if that’s what you young ins call it these days).
Seconds later I realized he wasn't in control. He was heading for a cement wall at full speed. You might imagine a little scooter doesn’t go that fast, but yes, especially while popping a wheelie it can go. He smashed into the wall and the front tire crashed into the window of our apartment building. I was sure it broke/cracked. My bike crashed and fell down and the sound of many things shattering echoed in the parking lot. The other 2 were laughing except me and Nick. As I looked around at the chaos I noticed for the first time a 12 pack of beer on the ground. I guess they were all drunk, but I hadn’t picked up on it. I guess I don’t pay attention to detail (must be why my girlfriend always says I have Attention Deficit Disorder).
Nick got up and his hands were all crushed from the bike. I was thinking looks like he will have a lot of bruises. I saw him a week later and his hands were purple and blue. Oh well, serves him right, he broke my bike. Karma is a b#*@h.
The rear tail light was completely shattered on my bike. Likewise, the fender cracked off. I don't know what else except for paint chips, random pieces of metal all over the ground (where did all the metal come from? Probably not that important, just the screws holding my scooter together). He probably just added a few more holes as well, hopefully not in the gas tank. I was thinking it was my chance to just spray paint it a new colour as the puke green looked bad anyways.

Our building. Just behind the tan car he hit the window.

Nick didn’t want to seem less manly so he didn’t really say much about it.
A week later he told me he would give me about $20 bucks for the repairs.
I got a new tail light that cost $30, the chipped paint I didn’t do anything about. I decided it added character. As for Nick, well he didn’t give me the $20. He never really lived up to any of his promises, except for inserting me into one of his rap songs, where he made me yell about AK47’s, Glocks, and M16’s. I don’t even know what those are. 

Not Nick, but someone that looked like him.

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Other funny stories from this blog 
http://memoirsgaijin.blogspot.ca/

My blog about everyday life (not Japan related)
http://eyethroughtheglass.blogspot.ca/


My Youtube Channel (makes no sense just like my blog)
http://www.youtube.com/user/judoka4eva