Yoga on The Sun, Sorta

As we arrived in Japan the weather hit me like a session of hot yoga. The heat at 40 C (I don’t know that in Fahrenheit for our American friends but its about as hot as the sun). Like yoga you are sweating in the heat and your body is in weird positions. In Japan, you fit yourself into packed trains, buses, and shove your bags into any crevices available. And sweat like butter melting in a frying pan.

After the initial arrival at the airport, we all crammed into a bus like sardines in a can (does anyone enjoy my numerous similes? Cause I do). That's a big word look it up.

"Nothing to see here, we can put a few more on. Find a spot folks."

If their intention was to wow and woo us with their incredible hotel & amazing views, they did a stellar job. I was bedazzled (like Brendan Frazier in the movie Bedazzled). The only thing that would have been nicer would be air conditioning between the bus and the hotel so I didn't keep sweating.

Who knew the devil looked this good. Hot! Like yoga ;-)

I knew there were many personalities in the types of gaijin (foreigner) about to embark to the land of the rising sun (that’s supposed to be poetic and it means Japan if you didn't know). I just didn't know what kind of personalities I would run into.

When I came from Canada I had been lucky enough that I had some friends from my University going to Japan on the same program. I guess I hit oil cause I was double lucky. My initials matched one of my friends. The seats were picked according to alphabetical order. So I got to sit with him.

There is a reason I'm telling you this, don’t worry, just keep rolling with it.

Once at the hotel, it happened the rooms were also chosen by country and alphabetical order, so again my friend was in my room. I thought it was going to be awesome until I realized there were 2 beds and a roll-away bed (cot), but only two of us. “Hells no!” I'm not taking the roll-away. It will damage my spine and hip alignment (although in all fairness I had not yet cracked my ribs and spine so I may have been OK. Refer to other blogposts to understand). 
I jumped in one bed and threw all my stuff on it with my shoes on (ha!), I'm a jerk as you know. They didn't have dog poo on them (this time mwahahahaa evil laugh).

One minute later a gigantic dude walked into the room, sweating worse than me. By gigantic I mean, like an Ogre from Lord of the Rings. The body odour was the worst I've ever experienced (rather like an Ogre’s actually). I considered throwing up into my hands then smelling it, in hopes it might smell better. Purify his putrid stench (more poetry terms).

We received a large package of training events. It said something along the lines of mandatory attendance please join eight out of ten events.

I didn't think it should be trouble for me as I had lived in Japan before. As for the other people, they were like a fish out of a pond (I seriously love these similes, I may write a book about them).

My friend in my room informed me he would probably sleep due to jet-lag and lots of drinking on the plane so he was skipping the events (he said ideally for the whole three days).

After one day of easy “you will have the worst culture shock ever course” I went to the free lunch. I love free everything as you know. Its the bane of my existence. I headed to lunch, but none of my friends were around (sleeping or drinking perhaps) and I didn't have anyone to sit with. I was the uncool kid wanting to sit with the cool kids. I saw one table with people full of smiles (Canadians maybe!?). I headed to the table. I couldn't guess where they were from by looking, but as soon as the Southern drawl (accent) from Texas came out, I knew where two of them were from.

Our main course came out which happened to be Japanese curry and rice. If you don’t know what it is, it’s basically Indian curry, but not strong and no spicy flavour to it.

“I don’t wanna be eating this mud. I thought those Japanese eat sushi”, she said. Oh lord, she is in for a surprise I snickered. 
‘I expected the Samurai’s to greet us and all ya’ll”, she said. She said that with a straight face I might add.

I almost spat my curry out, is this girl for real? It was delicious and I didn't want to waste it. Who says that? I was grabbing at the curry sauce splashing out my of cheeks and pushing it back into my mouth.
She sounded a bit riceist to me (that's a lame joke, sorry. Curry and rice so go with it).

On top of that I had never heard anyone used both all and ya’ll in combination. Sounded abnormal. I know I was about to be an English teacher and my English sucks, but look at her.

I shut my mouth and ate my curry while enjoying the show. Everyone introduced themselves and one of the “all ya’ll” Texas girls stated she had never been out of Texas and this was her first visit internationally. Someone piped up even Canada? (A Canadian probably) and she stated no not even there.

I didn't see her again although I heard through the grapevine later (through another Texan) that she made it for two months then went back to Texas. Ouch!

I should have known, if she expects Samurai and only sushi 24/7 she came to the wrong place.

As for my friend, he didn't attend any courses and he asked me to write down his name on some of the attendance sheets so it appeared he was there. Smart guy.

He started to go out drinking at nights and he ended up getting stuck with the roll-away. I pitied his hips and spine alignment.

I thought it was funny, so the last night when he came back from drinking I took what I thought were empty beer bottles and surround him with them while he was sleeping. It was hilarious and I took pictures.

But it turns out a few of them had beer in them though, so he got covered in beer and so did his bed.

He probably thought he peed himself and I didn't tell him the truth.

Ha! I enjoyed thoroughly.

As a bonus his beer pee smell counter attacked the sweaty ogre's smell.

If you see this dude in your room, hold your breath. Or get someone to pee on their bed to mask the flavour and scent.



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

Hellwalk and Arrival to Your TV Appearance

Hellwalk and Arrival to Your TV Appearance

Arrival in Otsu, Shiga. Time to go to go to the Ministry of Education!

Arrival at last. Oh by the way its as hot as hell. Enjoy!

After the hell walk (will be posted as a blog entry later) we arrived at the Shiga Ministry of Education Building. It was old and too far from the station. My sweat was dripping down my back as we entered the building. Air conditioning! Yes I thought, but no. To my dismay there was no air conditioning. Apparently it was being renovated. Unlucky! We started to cue for the elevator. One tiny elevator made for 3 Japanese to stand in at one time. That means barely 1 foreigner and even that 1 foreigner with 1 or 2 bags no way! It was too tight was taking forever so I elected to take the stairs. The only problem was it was the same temperature as outside and the lactic acid in my arms had eroded my muscles beyond use. I pulled my bags up as hard as I could up 5 flights of stairs. When we arrived at the top they told us everyone was late and we needed to put our suits on. “Wait!”, I said. “Can I have a shower or something, I’m covered in sweat and smell like man chowder”. They said "No, hurry up and change." Unlucky.
I ran into a room full of sweaty half naked foreigners body types aplenty. We had little tiny guys, big guys, super duper skinny guys and even a girl walked into our room by accident! We asked if they could possibly turn on the air conditioning in the room since we were dying and sweaty. They put a large fan at the entrance of the room. I started to rip my clothes off. I stood in front of the fan wafting my stinky man chowder into the air for all my fellow brethren to enjoy. Finally there seemed to be some sort of cool air coming into some vents at the back of the room. It seemed the air conditioning was working, slowly but surely. I ripped my socks off, tore my boxers off and threw them on the vent. Might as well dry those suckers while I can I thought. I wasn’t sure what to think of the other foreigners, but I heard 3 guys all from England talking in their high level English accents. “Emmm are you from New South Whales? Would you mind some tea and crumpets?”. Actually sorry I can’t remember what exactly they said to one another, but something along those lines, plus I was pretty much naked so I was more concerned with that. I finally took a gander at the Brit with blue eyes and dark hair “Hey what’s up you British bastard?”. He seemed to be taken aback. “Nice to meet you my friend”, he answered. It occurred to me he might now know I’m Canadian so maybe I better explain that. “I’m Canadian”. He said “Ok”. Maybe he didn’t know what that meant. I thought everyone knew, Canada is like India to Britain, the 2nd jewel in the crown. Or maybe not, based on his expression. I thought he’d know the history of my forefathers, how our people came from England to conquer a whole new world and became the best country on the planet. He, and no one else I met seemed to know that. How could they not?
I turned to my right where a really gangly British chap named Mayur. He was this tall guy super thin and a posh accent. He said his name a few times but I wasn’t quite able to pronounce it. I kept saying Mayor and he said no Mayuuuurl. I said "You mean Mayor?". and he’d say "No". Eventually after 5 minutes he said "OK you may call me Mayor", and that’s what I called him. Mayor copied my idea of putting his boxers and socks and shirt on the vents to dry them. My first thought was, this guy is gonna be a good friend. That turned out to be true.

I don't want to post Mayur's face so his shoe will have to do for now. Can you see its gangly?

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