happy belated thanksgiving!!

hopefully all of you had a great thanksgiving and ate yourselves into oblivion. seeing that the pilgrims never made it this far west to the far east (?!), thanksgiving (or should we call it thanksTAKING) day isn't a big deal out here in japan. i actually spent my night at work, teaching english lessons and dreaming about gravy over stuffing.

the past month has been pretty crazy with tons of stuff going on. my mom was in town for awhile, and then i had a bunch of other guests come hang out in tokyo. it all made for good fun, but was still tiring, trying to juggle everything while still getting used to working five days a week, being a part-time grad student, babysitting, and my freelance stuff. but seeing how everyone has now left, i finally have some time to recover until dec 9, when ryan and torie come!! i should seriously start charging for this whole tour guide business.

anyways, despite all of the stresses and hiccups of life in tokyo, i have so much to be thankful for. here is a partial list, as soon as i get more pictures, i will update this some more:

1) cute babies:

2) coldstone's global aspirations:

3) restaurants that make you feel like you're inside of kill bill:

4) people that fly thousands of miles to see me:

5) gifts from home

6) all of my awesome friends that write/call

7) technological innovation that makes all of this possible

8) fairly good health

9) an awesome place to live in an amazing city

10) family

toe socks!

i needed some new dress socks, and these are the rage (not to mention they're on sale at uniqlo). i admit that i was a hater a few years ago, but you can really get used to these things. i recommend.

perhaps you're asking yourself, "why does dean need dress socks? all he ever does is dress like a scrub." well, i done got myself a job. yes, a real job that requires me wearing a suit five days a week. i am officially employed as an english instructor for nova. the pay is decent and i only have to work during the evenings (m-f, 5pm-9pm). although i do have to work holidays, including thanksgiving and--gasp--christmas!! since it's 20 hours a week, i still have time to do my schoolwork (or at least pretend to) during the day. also, i can still go out for drinks and whatnot after work.

most of the other teachers are pretty cool folks, although there's this one guy that i just can't stand. i'll be surprised if he can last in japan for longer than a month. for someone so anti-everything japanese, i really wonder why he decided to come out here. and if someone in this country buys you a drink, you don't put it in your pocket and go home. ugh.

in other news, i'm helping my uncle look for a new computer right now (he's still using a pentium 2). i found a pretty good HP laptop that was hella cheap. he just gave me this befuddled look and said he's never even heard of the company before. i told him "HP is one of the biggest american computer manufacturers, and is based in the bay area!!" this is where it gets funny: he said he doesn't trust american companies and would gladly pay more for japanese! for some reason i always subconsciously placed japanese electronics above american electronics, but that never really applied for my opinions of computers. but listening to his reasoning, it all made sense. it's interesting to notice how proud japanese consumers are of their products' reputation, even to the point that they ignore external reviews, not to mention the PRICE. if american products can't even sell here, it's no wonder that chinese and korean companies can't even make a dent in this market.

ballin' out of control!!

just an extremely noteworthy update: my main man yuta tabuse was drafted by the bakersfield jam in the third round of this year's nbdl draft. and it gets better, because the jam are affiliated with my pride and joy (for better or for worse). you know you love it!!


speaking of basketball in japan, to put it simply, it's whack. as much as i want to watch some live action, this country lives and breathes baseball. there actually is a professional basketball league here in this country which gets absolutely zero love. i was thinking it'd be dope to rock a jersey, but then that brings up a brand new discussion point:

the naming of teams.

the aisen sea horses? the matsushita electric panasonic super kangaroos? even yuta's old team the toyota alvark? boy do those names strike fear into the hearts of the opponents.

better question: why do all japanese sports teams have to use english names for all of their teams? even baseball teams have names like hawks, lions, tigers, dragons, giants, etc. i'm sure there are japanese words for all of these mascots, yet the japanese sports machine chooses team names much easier understood by the average american than the average japanese.

and what the hell is an alvark!?

pepsi gold

do they have this in the states?

72 hour kansai photodiary!

just got back from a quick trip out to kyoto and osaka! time for some pictures:

randy and i left tokyo station at 7am on thursday on the shinkansen nozomi to kyoto. we were planning on saving money by taking the overnight bus, but seeing that we didn't book our tickets until the day before, we had to dish out the extra yen for the bullet train. still though, that's a fun ride. if i didn't set my alarm clock though, we would've most likely woken up in hiroshima. first impression of kyoto upon stepping out of the station: "if you said we were still in tokyo, i'd believe you..."

first stop: kiyomizu-dera! it was a bit too crowded to really enjoy as much as i wanted to, but still pretty cool.

from there, it was off to heian jingu.

made a pit stop for some of that bomb kyoto food.

after getting lost and walking all over the city, we finally found the right bus to get to kinkakuji. i honestly believe that this is the most beautiful place in the world.

from there, we had just enough time to walk over to see the rock garden at ryoanji. supposedly it is the quintessential zen spot. upon first glance, i was kinda disappointed to pay $5 to see a bunch of rocks, but after sitting down and just soaking it in, i was converted into a believer. pictures will never be able to serve this place justice. this was easily the highlight of my trip.

hung out with traci (who was so kind in letting us crash for the night). we had some amazing falafels, despite my complaints that i didn't go to kyoto to eat falafels. later, we went out to this dope spot called a-bar, where i met/was reunited with elisa! what a small world.

the next morning, we went out towards ginkakuji then took the tetsugaku no michi, which is a mile-long walk next to a river. apparently, we were walking in several philosopher's footsteps (thus the name). so, randy and i sought out the answers to life.

although we didn't find world peace during our hike, we did randomly explore some perpendicular streets, including this hidden spot. i swear, kyoto just kept continuing to amaze me.

after enough philosophizing, we wanted to visit eikando temple, which is more famous for the changing colors of leaves. in fact, they just bumped up the admission to $10 since it is the autumn season. but i think we were about a week early, because everything was still way too green. here's the outside of the gate, just to prove we went there.

this thing at nanzenji was HUGE.

here i am strolling through gion. nope, not cool enough to hang out with any geisha.

our last stop in the kyoto region was at fushimi-inari, which is famous for its thousands of torii gates. we wanted to make it to the top, but failed miserably. seriously, it's tough!! i also tried to do my best memoirs of a geisha running through the gates impression.

from there, it was off to osaka! for november third, i think they went a little overboard on the christmas decorations at hoop in tennoji. it took us awhile, but we finally found yamachan, which is THE takoyaki spot according to miho. best takoyaki i ever had, no question. less than $3 for ten, fresh off the grill, made by a cute japanese girl.

found a hotel room for under $20. even though it was tiny, you can't argue when it's that cheap.

all we really did in osaka was eat, drink, and shop (and lots of it). but honestly, nothing wrong with that. although this wasn't the cheesecake factory i'm used to...

...and this was slightly disturbing (dope shop tho)...

...graffiti done up on a wall, osaka-style...

...and finally the osaka bape store!!

it's really hard to explain what osaka felt like. the trendy parts felt a lot like tokyo, but it seems to have a less western influence (maybe because there aren't as many of the roppongi gaijin-types). the ghetto spots seemed ghettoer. the trains were older (but a lot less crowded). people stand on the other side of the escalators. my best comparison is that it seems like tokyo in a parallel universe, similar to the "wrong" 1985 that marty goes back to in back to the future 2.

i didn't really have any problem communicating with folks, but i was doing a lot of eavesdropping. i really can't understand that kansai-ben at all.

finally, we caught the 10:50pm overnight "premium dream" bus back to tokyo. quick trip, but definitely good times. can't wait to go again!! oh, one final comic moment. on the jr bus, when we arrived in tokyo, the PA was this automated voice speaking in japanese for about 5 minutes straight. following that, she switched to english and said "we will soon be arriving in tokyo. please give your ticket to the driver when you get off the train." to which randy and looked at each other and asked, "is that really all she said?"

just some randomness

so i was watching tv earlier tonight and saw this tv show called cool japan. it's actually a pretty interesting concept. they get folks living in japan that just moved here from other countries to share their thoughts on things to define what is "cool." today's topics were gift wrapping, ¥100 shops, and japanese sales pitches. in addition to the three japanese hosts, there were about ten panelists representing canada, spain, uk, germany, malaysia, brazil, australia, and some other countries.

for example, on the topic of gift wrapping, the japanese hosts talked about how they are shocked when they see american movies with people ripping the wrapping paper off of their christmas presents. they viewed this as being disrespectful for the person that gave them the gift. in response, the panelists said things like ripping apart paper shows that you're excited to see what the gift is, or that japanese people pay too much attention to the wrapping paper because the gift itself is generic and unimportant.

while i'm glad to see a program that compares social actions across international communities in an effort to understand different ways of life, this program also seems a bit problematic. first, each of the panelist spoke as if they represented their entire country. there was this snobby guy from spain talking about how he hated the ¥100 shop because it's all junk and that spanish people don't like junk. such statements that essentialize millions of people can only lead to negative stereotyping. second, all of the panelists spoke in english. while no one can argue the widespread reach of the english language, it does require a certain type of person to become fluent enough to appear on a television show and speak in a non-native tongue.

it probably would have been better had i caught the beginning of the show, because hopefully they address some of these issues when they introduce all of the panelists. but now that i know when it's on, i'll try to catch the next episode. and since i do think it's pretty cool, i actually just submitted my name and filled out this questionnaire for the show's "open call for participants."

in case you were wondering why i missed the beginning, it's because i was watching this kids' hip-hop dance competition. one group that particularly caught my eye was this group of young eight year old girls. they were wearing these real baggy pants that looked pretty gangsta, and they were good! but then for their finishing move, they formed a horizontal line, turned around, and ALL PULLED DOWN THEIR PANTS. underneath their pants they were wearing these hoochie mama shorts, each with a letter on them, to spell out their team name. THESE GIRLS WERE EIGHT YEARS OLD!! sometimes i really wonder where japanese people cut the line for decency, especially in a country where you can't even rip wrapping paper.

later today, randy and i will be heading down to kyoto for a couple days, and then osaka for about a day. i'll try to take lots of pictures of all the sites and whatever it is we end up doing. we planned this hella last minute, but at least we have confirmed transportation and a place to stay. just as long as we don't end up like this group of dudes i saw at a mcdonald's around 4am...

the university cafeteria experience

engrish, how i love thee. yesterday i was eating in one of the cafeterias at sophia university when i noticed the bag that the french fries came in. i had to bring it home with me to share.

since i'm sure you can't read it, let me transcribe:

SOUNDS GOOD
Thank you very much for purch using every day.

Feeling smile and satisfaction,always.
Frankly,producing prouducts say What a so tasty! is our mission.
Innouation "taste well"to make you surprise and present for you.
Special thanks for supporting
our product.We stake a word of tasty from a custmer.
Thank you very much for purchusing every day.This item is one of
our proud stuff we made and put a heart and soul for our store.
by all of us.

it's things like this that really wonder if you should laugh...or cry...

on the other hand, the whole college lunch thing over here is pretty cool. despite the fact that it feels like high school with the bells and the fact that everyone eats lunch at the same time, the food is a bargain. usually i get a daily special, which costs a little under $4. for example:

pork curry over rice, yakisoba, chicken karaage, salad, and miso soup. tea is free. bonus points for being cooked and served by old japanese ladies. definitely grub. although i do miss the staple ucla lunch from time to time.