My oh my how time does fly. As my sister points out to me, my “about me” section is grossly inaccurate. I am no longer 23 but in fact 26. I have been in Japan for 3 years. I can really feel those 3 years. What an amazing ride this has all been. I have learned more about myself in 3 years than I have in all the prior years of my life. Not only did I learn a lot about myself but I learned a lot about my country and also JAPAN! It’s funny that this trip to Japan was sparked from one conversation with my good friend Jon. I’ll remember that day forever because it was so ordinary. We were both in my basement room. He was sitting on my bed and I was sitting on my chair surfing the internet. I am pretty sure we had slurpees (when don’t we have slurpees?) I was telling him about my future plans. At that time I was planning on transferring to Kansas University. I wanted to learn Japanese and I knew people there and I knew the school. I was kinda set on that. Then Jon says, “If you want to learn Japanese why don’t you just go to Japan?” Fast-forward and here I am. In Japan. It is funny how such a normal day and such a simple suggestion totally changed my life. I have gone on adventures, met crazy people from around the world, and learned way more about life than I ever could in the bubble I was living in in America. That’s what it was. I think people don’t realize how constricting a routine and normalcy is to their lives. It restricts you from learning so much about basically everything. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t scared before I left my bubble. I had never been that far away from home for so long. I had never been somewhere for so long and not known any of the people there. It forced me to once again (Kansas Japan trip did this to) to make friends with, gulp, strangers…. It is funny though how even when you are in a totally different culture, with totally different people, that you end up doing similar things. I ended up only making a few friends. I was never much on making tons of friends. I’ve rather have a few close ones. Those friends though were integral to my Japan experience. Without them, I would have never experienced Japan. I can say that with certainty. As much as I wanted to (and still do) change my life for the better, I was too scared. I was scared to go out alone and go to clubs and bars and meet new people. My friends helped me do this and I will forever be grateful to them for this.
I think I am going to summarize the best experiences I have had in Japan in the next few posts. I think I also want to go over what I really loved/hated about Japan too. I guess I will start with the good stuff. I might not have had as many experiences as others when they come to a foreign country, but like with my friends, I cherish the experiences I have even if they aren’t as plentiful as other people’s.
Entering the land/ The dorm dayz
When I came to Japan I was sick as a dog. I almost puked before I got on the plane and that wasn’t from nerves. I have trouble sleeping on planes so I basically got none. That didn’t dull my excitement though when I landed. I remember driving to the dorm in taxis. I was with this douche bag Tom. I was trying to be nice at the time but my douche alarm was going off like crazy (later he would be known for spending half an hour on his hair in the bathroom and banging really ugly middle-aged women). I knew that if I let these alarms get the better of me I wouldn’t make any friends so I put it all aside. We get to the dorm and I get my room. Basically a cubicle. I realize that I am older than about 3/4 of the people there. No matter, I will befriend people. The doors are paper-thin so any screaming that went on in the halls would wake you up. I punched a hole in the wall on accident once because of this
SIDESTORY: There were semester abroad people who also stayed in the dorm. Basically that means they partied every day. Why wouldn’t they? It was a semester long vacation for them. This also lead to them being really loud in the hallways at around 6 o’clock. The first trains run around 5 o’clock and it takes around an hour to get back from what was most certainly Roppongi. I was really pissed about this and in a sleepy stupor, I punched a hole into the paper-thin drywall. OOPS good thing I didn’t have to pay for it.
Time went on and I made my core friends. I also made kinda side friends. One of them being this crazy girl whose name I have forgotten. I was really desperate to find someone when I first got back and it clouded my eyes. I knew she was crazy but I kept at it. She was one of those 7th day Adventists and she was really really defensive about her personal space. Guys scared her and it was obvious. I was less than charming. Desperate in other words. She saw it and sent me packing which really didn’t bug me because honestly, I didn’t really like her and neither did anyone else really. I think what got me was she was a really good singer. Like really good.
These first months of Japan really went in a blur. Basically my core friends were Derrick, Kelsey and Mike. Mike left us eventually but it was always me, Derrick, and Kelsey. We hung out nearly every weekend together. We tried to organize get-togethers a lot. Let me rephrase. THEY, as in Derrick and Mike, tried to get get-togethers going and I glommed onto them. I was grateful. I really did want to go I just was a wuss. Mike had gone to high school for a year in Japan and we kind of relied on him to get us around. Later we realized he wasn’t THAT good at Japanese but that was way after he stopped hanging out with us. Anyways we would party all the time. Derrick and I started working out together and this lead to me getting to the strongest that I have ever been. At the dorms we got a decent running group going. This one guy Aaron, who was older than me, got me to run with my shirt off during the day once and I felt like a huge asshole. Only old ladies checked us out and it was really disappointing. WE WERE THE MOST RIPPED IN THE DORMS THOUGH SOO IT WAS ALL GOOD.
One thing Derrick and I did regularly was get this pizza bread and beer and go to some park somewhere. It was pretty fun. Drinking outdoors has some sort of allure that I can’t quite put my finger on. The parks are were all the mosquitoes congregate and we would get eaten up. That sucked but otherwise it was really fun. It was at one of these parks, when I was running alone, that I ended up boxing some guy. He was boxing one of his friends who seemed to be terrified even though they had gloves and helmets on. It was pretty fun and I would do it again if given the chance.
When we first got here to Japan everything was so new and crazy. Even though I had been to Tokyo a few years prior, I had only stayed for a couple of hours here and there. Now I could really experience it for all its worth (so I thought. THERE’S MORE OUT THERE THAN SHIBUYA AND SHINJUKU PEOPLE!) Everything was so crazy then. Me and Derrick would get dressed up sometimes and go out in suits. I got a haircut and felt pretty bad ass. I remember this one time we had chicks just gawking at us everywhere we went. I had never had that before. The best night I had when we were living in the dorms in my opinion was when we went to our first true all you can drink in Shinjuku. Oh man did we drink. Kelsey was a drunken mess. We went to this izakaya and started pounding drinks. Those assholes went slow on us on purpose. I taught everyone that heater high-five we used to do back home where everyone starts slapping their hands on their thighs and pass a high-five around a circle and when it gets around everyone cheers. The Japanese people around us loved it. We were roping them in. Soon we had half of the place doing it together. We ended up “talking” to the people next to us and they said they knew another place we could go so we followed. There we drank even more. Oh man was Kelsey smashed. At this time he was only 18 years old. He couldn’t even keep his head up. He had to go puke in the bathroom and we left him there. The leader of the Japanese group was like “is your friend ok?” and we all said “he’s fine just leave him in there”. Nevertheless, a few of the Japanese guys went in there and watched over him. They were too nice. One girl was REAALLY nice. She kept massaging my leg and whatnot. She was really hammered. Her leader quickly put a stop to that. That’s one thing to keep in mind all you people new to Japan. Japan usually has a Senpai Kohai system going on. One person is usually a leader of a group and watches out for their underlings. We eventually left the place. Kelsey wanted us to leave him to sleep on the street. We took him home anyways.
Those first few months of Japan were some of the best I have ever had. Nothing beats that new feeling really. I sincerely believe that everyone should experience it at least once. Merely vacationing in a new country wont give you the same feeling. Everything seems special and amazing. I am sure no one remembers this, but I remember when I first passed a post office next to our dorm. This post office was just a local small post office serving the small neighborhood, and yet it had a freaking “security guard”. He was actually more of a doorman. He would stand out there in his thick wool suit in the sun all day and just say hello to everyone. That’s all he did. All day. I was blown away from this. What a total waste of money to hire a guy like this. How incredibly and overly polite it seemed to me. Now I know that post offices are also banks but still it seems totally frivolous to me. It was little things like that that really feel like I was in some strange world. Believe me, a dorm man security guard was not even scratching the surface of weird in this country.
My first apartment in Japan
What a freaking pain in the ass this was. Once again I give full credit to all my friends because I basically did nothing in helping with finding of the apartment. I am sure someone was pissed at me about that BUT WHATEV. The dorms at Temple make you leave them after a semester to open up room for the next semester students. Trust me, I didn’t want to stay in that shithole for another semester. On top of it being a dorm with shared bathrooms and kitchens, crappy internet, and spoiled retards, it cost 1200 fucking bucks a month. To those who have not lived here and have the idea that Tokyo is expensive, well it is. However 1200 bucks a month for a dorm is outrageous. You could get a decent apartment and not have to share anything, and have a better location for 1200 bucks a month. So yea, they didn’t have to force us out of the dorms.
In the beginning our initial plan was to live in Tokyo in some kinda ritzy place. I really don’t remember where. We wanted a huge place to throw parties in. It was gonna be me, Derrick, Kelsey, Mike, and Kevin (who was this friend of ours that was seemingly gay and could make me furious just by looking at me). To be honest…. I didn’t want to live with Kevin, BUTTTT ti seemed like a decent trade-off for a good place. And BOY did they find a great place. I mean this place had it all. It was spacious and had enough bedrooms for us. It was in a great location. Places this big for rent are hard to come by. If only we had known then what we do now. I doubt our youth, lack of Japanese, and loan funded income seemed too appealing to a landlord. I think we could have gotten the place now. So that plan went bust and we had to change plans. I vaguely remember that everyone thought we were conspiring to get a place with another person or vis versa. I don’t remember the specifics but I am pretty sure that lead to just Derrick, Kelsey and myself getting an apartment without the other two guys. We found this place on the edge of Tokyo. The rent was 400 bucks a piece. It was a three-story house. The third story was just an attic converted into a bedroom. It was awesome. It was everything we needed and wanted. Sure it gave us a 80 minute commute but we didn’t care. We had a party house. I had the bottom floor room because the third bedroom upstairs had no privacy whatsoever. My room was pretty sweet except that the doors to it were these giant sliding doors and they didn’t block any of the sound. This would blow up in my face occasionally when I wanted to sleep and others didn’t. Derrick definitely had the best room but he deserved it because he did the footwork to find it.
Speaking of footwork, that reminds me, getting our stuff from the dorm to there was such a hassle. I had well over 100 pounds of crap I needed to get there. We didn’t have money for a mover, or we were just too ignorant to fathom it, so we got on the first train one day and dragged most of our stuff there. That was a trek. Even though we got the first train, by the time we got to our home train line the trains were packed. We were so sweaty. Thank goodness it wasn’t summer or we could have stunk up an entire train car. The first thing we did when we got to the house was sleep. We all slept on the floor in my room. I woke up to the smell of Kelsey’s smell ass which had moved towards my face during the night since we were all sprawled every which way in the room. I’ll just chalk it up to all the walking. I can’t get too mad at him since he helped furnish the house by stealing plates, silverware, and blankets from the dorm and restaurants. I still have one of those blankets. It’s a comforter that has come in handy.
THE LITTLE THINGS: There were some little things that I couldn’t fit into any other stories.
1. For some reason there were always slugs in the house. They got in through the front door and we just couldn’t stop them. Some were pretty big. We used to put salt on them cause we were jerks.
2. We would BBQ from time to time. It was pretty funny because the houses were so close together we would basically smoke out all the surrounding houses. They would have to close their windows because if they didn’t their houses would be filled with smoke. One time Derrick and I made beer brats so not only did the whole block smell like smoke but our house smelled like skunky beer.
3. The walls in houses in Japan are basically made of nothing. They build houses in maybe a month and a half top here so there isn’t much substance to them. Which means basically anything you do in your house is heard by all your neighbors. I used to play video games in our family room. Some games are hard and annoying. I am not the calmest gamer. Our landlords would tell me about how they could hear me swearing through the walls even though we didn’t share a wall. There was about 5 feet in between our houses and the sound still traveled that length and through both of our walls and windows. This right here, is why Japan has love hotels. No one has privacy in Japan so you got to pay a premium for it.
4. Fruit flies. I HATE fruit flies. At first we didn’t have garbage cans with covers on them. That was a big mistake. Living in such a humid and hot country produces a lot of bugs. Fruit flies go nuts with garbage if you don’t cover it. We would have hundreds of these things everywhere. That wasn’t even the worst part. They would lay eggs everywhere. Even though the garbage wasn’t by my room and i kept the door closed most of the time, there would be bug eggs all over my one wall nearest to the kitchen. It was terrible.
5. Japanese sewers are awful. I had heard this from a person that was not too bright but I believe him. You know how on your toilets and whatnot you usually have a u-bend in the pipes? This I guess is for keeping sewer gas from bubbling up out of your toilets and bathtubs. Japan’s baths DON’T HAVE THIS. So when you have tons of people living on top of each other you get sewage. Man does it stink. There was no predicting it. It would just rise out of the drain in our bathroom. My room was next to the bathroom so I had to smell this putrid gas all the time. IT was terrible. Not only that but I am pretty sure flies come out of it too. In my current apartment I have sewer flies which are basically just fruit flies. So freaking annoying.
The Parties
We had some really great parties at that house. We got all these supposed friends of ours to come out to our place and drink and eat. This is one thing that never made sense to me. To get anyone to do anything in Tokyo, you have to make plans at least a month in advance. And don’t expect them to stay over because it isn’t going to happen. They would come out all that way to hang out, stay for a few hours, then leave. That always pissed me off which I am sure I verbally abused them about when I was drunk. What bugged me even more is that they weren’t all Japanese. I’d expect that from a Japanese Tokyoite but not a foreign one. We made the most of the people there though. The parties got later and noisier as the went on. Eventually we got complaints. We fixed this by putting down the shutters on the windows and shoving carpet and cardboard in-between them. It totally worked. One party we had,was the first snow that I experienced in Japan. All the lamer people left and it was just me, Derrick, Mike and Kelsey. We went out in the snow and found it to be pretty good packing snow. So we rushed over to this field by us and made this giant snow dick. It was great. Parks in Japan rarely have grass so the snow had tons of dirt in it but that was ok with us.
This other time, I don’t know what possessed me to do this, but I ended up taking my shirt and pants off. I put those old raiders shorts from high school on over my underwear and I walked over a mile with everyone to McDonald’s. Apparently I got really angry with the worker for some reason. Some policeman asked me if I was ok and I said yes and he left me alone. In America that would have resulted in me going to jail most likely. Also I had no shoes on.
There was partial nudity, snow sculpting, stomach shaving, yelling matches, and other great things that happened at that house. But there is something I am forgetting…. I know it was important…. Kinda really annoying and funny at the same time what was it….. Oh wait I think it was BREENNNNDAAANNN I GOT YOUR MMMONNNAAAYYYYYYYYYY!!! Our house was a duplex and we shared a wall with another apartment that had the most flamboyantly gay inhabitant imaginable. It was really icing on the cake for me since he didn’t wake me up every day when he was elephant stomping down the stairs. Derrick’s wall shared the wall with their stairs and he would go mad with rage at listening to this guy. I remember the first time Derrick heard him. It was so funny. We were all down in the kitchen and Derrick was like “dude I think our neighbor is gay” and he did a spot on “bredan I got your money” which can never be topped. Oh man was I in tears from that one. The best part was that it didn’t stop there. This gay guy was also black therefore he loved Whitney Houston. Oh my oh my did he love her. He would sing the theme from the bodyguard on a regular basis. He thought he was the best singer put on this planet. I will never forget hearing him sing that stupid ass song in the shower all the time. One time we played the song on my computer and turned it down and I heard him yell out “AW HELL NAW” and he started playing it too. He fucking LOVED that song. BUT IT DOESN’T STOP THERE! He would say other hilarious stuff too. Our apartments were old and they had giant cockroaches in them. There weren’t that many but they were there. This one day I guess he must have seen one because he yelled out in the most flamboyantly gay voice, “EWWWWAH A COCKROAACCH!” God damn, that is pure hilarity goodness. What is probably without a doubt the funniest thing he has ever said though was thankfully heard first hand by me. I was in the toilet doing my business and I guess he had to as well. He seemed to be having trouble though because after a while he screamed out “LET IT PASS THROUGH ME!!!” Did I mention that this guy was a christian? So you know that prayer was real for him. Man that’s good stuff. He was totally serious when he yelled that out. You could hear a wince of pain in it. He was also a big whiny bitch to his roommates and would make demands to them like to not use the kitchen and whatnot. Man that was good stuff. It wasn’t so good for Derrick though who eventually had to resort to wearing earplugs to bed.
The Library
Ok so as I said, I really wanted a girlfriend when I came to Japan. Abbie had dumped me and moved on and I felt like a piece of crap. My first semester at Temple I noticed this girl at the library named Terumi. Man she was good looking (still is). I liked her style and how confident she looked. At the time though I hadn’t really gotten the confidence I had now. I let my infatuation control me too much and I couldn’t approach her. So I got another idea. I would get a job at the library so I could get close to her and talk to her in a regular way. She was always getting hit on by guys and I wanted to go about it a different way. So when the new semester started I got a job at the library. I ended up liking it a lot actually. The ladies that worked there were really nice and the job was easy and relaxing. But I had my sights set. I kept trying to talk to Terumi but she was far more experienced than me when it came to getting hit on/hitting on others. Clubber chicks are like that. She knew I was acting like a nervous puss and when I asked her to a party of ours she turned me down. It was when she did that, the spell was broken and I could talk to her normal. I wish I could have done that from the beginning but OH WELL. She seemed pretty cool but at the end of the day, I realized she wasn’t want I wanted anyways. It was at this time that I also met Haruka (my girlfriend) and Sara (my EX girlfriend). Let me first say, this was never my plan. I didn’t plan to go for two girls at once and it was only after Haruka seemed too busy/timid/not interested that I moved onto Sara. Ah Sara. What is there to say about her that hasn’t been said. Well let me start at the beginning. We were taking a Chinese History class together. I used to see her wearing her crazy “indie” clothes and I thought she looked rather lame. We got paired up for a project though and I got to talking to her and she seemed pretty cool actually. We would hang out together a lot after that. One time we spent the whole day together and we got wasted and I gave this speech in class (it wasn’t for a grade). That was probably the best time I had that involved Sara.
Out with the old. In with the uuuggghhhhhhhhh
So at the end of the year Kelsey decided he wasn’t gonna stay in Japan anymore. Probably better he didn’t because he rarely went to class and just lived in squalor in his room. He didn’t really know what he wanted to do in school then anyways. So we needed a new roommate. It just so happened that I met Sara around the same time and she too was looking for a new place. We got to talking and it was cool with everyone so we decided that she would replace Kelsey. We were getting to know each other better at that time so, Kelsey, me, Derrick and Sara met up in Tokyo. Now I don’t know why this happened anymore but Sara and I left alone together and it was then that we told each other we liked each other. It was actually a pretty good night. Would have been better if it were someone else but it was still a good night. We secretly dated for a while but eventually I told Kelsey and Derrick that we were dating. They didn’t seem to care too much as long as it didn’t result in her leaving someday. I assured them it wouldn’t. Well mostly I assured Derrick. So we were going to have a going home party/welcome to the apartment party for Kelsey and Sara. It was this very day that I realized that there was no way this whole thing was gonna work out with me and Sara. For one thing, Sara was way too young. She was… 20 I think? I don’t remember. Maybe a bit older than my sisters. She was basically retarded when it came to anything involving women vs men. She was super defensive. This isn’t so bad in itself but it made me realize that I maybe hadn’t thought everything when I went for her.
Derrick, Sara and I were walking to the station to pick up some friends. As we were walking, I don’t know how it came up, but we were talking about working out and leg strength. Sara got it in her head that women’s legs are much stronger than men’s legs. I am sure I explained to her in the most respectful way possible that she was wrong BUT SHE STILL DIDN’T AGREE. She in fact said that she could probably leg press as much as me. Let’s get this straight. Sara is one of the most unhealthy people you will ever meet. She isn’t fat at all but she just doesn’t take care of herself. She is always slouched over and she eats terrible food. The only form of exercise she ever got was swimming and the occasional recreational bike ride. It was just the way that she got so incredibly defensive about it that totally socked me out of my funk. I couldn’t believe how retarded she was being. It would eventually be made clear that his was the very tip of the iceberg.
So Sara was in, Kelsey was out. Sara went home for a few months and that was when I REALLY realized I didn’t want to date her anymore. I was in a real pickle. She had JUST moved in and I was already ready to break up. At the time I had been dead set on moving to Hokkaido so I broke up with her using that as the excuse. Pussyish I know but I really had to keep the atmosphere neutral at least. Neither Derrick or I could afford her leaving and I guess she probably couldn’t either. So we broke up and it was good that we did. Derrick and I learned quickly what she was capable of… I won’t go into it but you can ask me for specific stories. Let’s just say she wasn’t an ideal roommate. That isn’t to say we didn’t have some good times. Overall though it wasn’t very good. I learned a great deal from that short relationship though. I learned a lot about what I want and what I don’t so I am thankful it happened.
That’s all for today. Next time I shall talk about Haruka, my job, and bring everything up to now.
Yeuh, good read.