the tale unfolds

There was something awork in my stomach. The juices were churning, there was a chemical conspiracy afoot. My stomach's plan: to reject it's contents like an erupting volcano all over my lap and futon. Let me tell you that it carried this plan through without a flaw. In by sleepy stupor, i suddenly realized i was soaked in gastric juices and food bits, and that more was on it's way up my throat. I had no conception of where it was all spilling to, and of the consequences, and i vaguely remember rising and reaching the bathroom, and haphazardly cleaning my legs somehow, and chucking my clothes into the corner of my room, along with the soaked sheets and mattress, and my last waking vision was the stomach acid dripping on the carpet from the corner of my folded sheet.
When i awoke in the morning, an offensive smell reached my nose. The smell of putrified vomit. Sickened, i grabbed my soaked underwear and sheets and dumped them out on the terrace. I put on some clothes because my room was freezing--i had apparently opened the window at some point because of the smell--and tried to get more sleep, on the floor and under the cover that i salvaged. Whenever i briefly woke again, i smelled vomit but would ignore it and try to close my eyes. And after i got up, it seemed like i was smelling vomit all morning. I immediately walked to the convinience store on the corner and bought a hot red bean bun, and stopped into the grocery store and got some black bean crackers and a rice cake full of red bean, and i ate them as i walked around, trying to breathe some fresh air. I suppose i had a bean craving. After i got home, i spent my morning rinsing off my underwear and sheets in the bathtub and dropping them into the washer, scrubbing my floor where the dripping occured, and trying to figure out how to get my mattress and blanket clean. I carried them outside to the landromat (a cramped indoor corner stuffed with machines) and discovered that no washers would accomodate the size of my washables. The whole time i kept catching whiffs of vomit from the blanket. I then dragged them to the cleaners, and was told it would cost 40 dollars to clean and would be ready in 10 days. I told them i would clean them myself. I brought them home again and asked Ash what to do. Only upon speaking to him did i think of a brilliant idea. I could just throw them away. I went downstairs and got big garbage bags from the superintendent, and he kindly helped me dispose of them behind the building in a secret garbage stash where i supposed they would eventually be taken care of. He tried to tell me to wait till April, but i told him i was going home then, and he finally gave in, thanks be to God. After this i took a shower to wash away the stink, and finally i was done. I celebrated by eating all i had left resembling food in the house--pumpkin seeds, old tofu, and some strips of dried sweet potato. And here i am. The adventure has come to an end, and i am wiser because of it.

the prelude

At this point, i thought my exciting Tokushima adventures were over, and that the only prospective adventures i could have would be in other places in Japan. How wrong i was! Last night was a party to both welcome new teachers and to wish away another one back to Canada, though he did not show due to a so-called illness. I met the new teachers, that had just arrived in the country some days ago, with a burst of unexpected energy as i marched into the private room of the izakaya (bar/restaurant) that was reserved for us. Just previously i had been drinking cups of tea and coffee at Gasto (fake diner) with Yuuki as we chatted about languages, the bizarreness of the girls in our little friend circle, and various unimportances. I struggled trying to speak to him in his language, and eventually made a deal that i would speak English and he could speak Japanese. It worked splendidly. We could both speak naturally and mostly understand each other. The drink bar at Gasto is all you can drink, and i have come to the conclusion that they never had experience with Jewish customers before. Naturally, i always take advantage of the situation with as little shame as i can manage. Needless to say, i was pumped full of caffeine and eager to engage in buffoonery by the time i reached the izakaya. I sat myself down next to a fuzzy-faced Canadian girl and immediately began to barrage her with inane chatter. When she introduced herself, she stroked the fuzz on her face as if to say, 'Yes, we both know i have quite a fuzzy face, and i am not ashamed.' I confessed to her that i wanted to move to Canada in my later years, and live on a farm and grow fruits in the spring and preserve them in jars for the winter, and during the winter eat the preserves on toast. I told her this with the straightest of faces and i also mentioned that only a Canadian could understand this dream of mine. I think this is when she began to fear me, and she tried desperately to reduce the conversation to a minimum, and eventually turned away and didn't speak to me for the rest of the night. But before this, i managed to tell her openly about my contempt for Australians and their habit of inventing slang on the spot and claiming that it is something Australians say every day. We were of course surrounded by Australians, and this made her very uncomfortable because i said it quite loud. After this social blunder, i began to drink sake and eat the foods they served--this was a "nomihodai", which means all you can drink, but unlike at Gasto, i drank only sake. Unfortunately, i drank more sake than i should have, and didn't realize this until it was too late. I was past the stage of cheery drunkenness and into the stage of blank staring to try and forget the spinning. I managed to stumble outside and walk home, being thankful i did not foolishly take my bike, and i finally got to collapse into bed. In the middle of the night i awoke and sat up, not knowing what was happening exactly. This is where our adventure begins.

more picture mania

These were taken in the comfort of my own bathroom. The metamorphosis is complete.

a successful lunch engagement

Today i made lunch for a friend of mine, Sanae, who does occasional conversation exchange meetings with me, although the meetings are usually tilted towards the Japanese side because her English is not good enough to converse with. My Japanese is broken and poor, but i can hold a conversation. I am very proud of myself because i made the lunch by myself and properly entertained a Japanese person without any gaijin awkwardness. I made her this lunch in return for the picnic lunch she made us for our last meeting, which was so meticulously planned and appropriate that it quite startled me. I cooked the following: burdock root with carrots sauteed in sesame oil with sugar and soy sauce; daikon radish, leek, and an unnamed root vegetable resembling a flower bulb steamed with sweet sake and flavored with miso, and steamed pumpkin with curry sauce. I also made some rice. She brought two slices of expensive cheesecake as dessert. She kept exclaiming on how delicious the food was, so i can safely say that i managed to cook something resembling Japanese food that a Japanese person enjoyed. Mission accomplished! We drank brown rice tea with the cheesecake and i roasted the pumpkin seeds so she could try some: apparently, in Japan, the seeds are not usually eaten. I told her that during Halloween as a child, after carving the pumpkin, we would roast and eat the seeds. She was thoroughly amazed.
Tomorrow i shall have lunch with my friend Travis, the tall lanky ex-vegetarian who so kindly made me dinner so many times.
Well, this has been another session of cooking with Jamie. Or rather, just the descriptions of the foods. I don't care if you don't enjoy reading about it.

beardless

I just shaved off my entire glorious beard. First i attacked it unawares with scissors, and it writhed and flailed, but i persisted until i had tamed it down to a manageable length. It was then so humiliated that it allowed me, not without groaning softly, to slice it down to miniscule nubs with a disposable razor, and i finished the job by pressing firmly against my skin and mowing off the stubborn tufts that remained. For memory's sake, i kept thick sideburns. With these sideburns curly at the top, i look like a balding elf. Not far from the truth! When i am old and entirely bald, i wish to be seen as elfin, capable of darting between dark spots and leaping out suddenly upon innocent children, maybe even my grandchildren. They will be frightened of me and will refuse to visit me in the mental hospital when they come of age.
I played ping pong with the Mongolian, Battur, today. He is quite good, and we had some dashing rounds of slamming and returning. When we played serious games, i began to hear his Mongolian war-cries, which he later assured me were imitated shouts of either Chinese, Korean, or Japanese athletes on television, he could not remember which. I soon began to imitate them as well, and a jovial time we had, mocking these athletes and giggling girlishly. But the games we played were as serious as Chingis Khan's ruthless conquering of China. Yuuki, my old conversation teacher, and Danny, the religious Christian Anglo girl from Zambia, were playing as well, though not nearly as ferociously. Afterwards, Danny, Yuuki, and i went out to the fake diner, "Gasto", and enjoyed some hot drinks over some petty small talk involving animal rights and how it all relates to man's relationship with God. Of course, i brought all of it up and i was basically lecturing poor Danny, who simply sat politely and listened, offering a comment every once in a while, but mostly showing me a face of passively anxious uneasiness. My insistence that i can argue anything knows no bounds.
I shaved of the beard because i was sick of it, it was not new and fun anymore, and i missed my own face. Now i need not worry about shaving it off later, or getting questioned in a small room in the airport about my relationship with Allah, or having to worry about "trimming" it to appease my superior at work. Apparently, i began to look like a forest hermit, or worse, a ravenous Western barbarian desperate for spices to trade in Eastern Europe who will consume any Japanese who get in his way. Like the old days. They are safe, because i have all the spices i need. For now.

my friendly neighbors

Today i made a brief trip around the neighborhood to visit some acquaintances i made over the past months. I visited first the "Nepari" store that sells Nepali teas, salts, and jewelery. I usually speak with the woman there, but today her husband was there and i spoke with him instead, mostly about Nepal and my Japan living statistics. He has been there 10 times, i assume with his wife, and his daughter is going there to become a tour guide. His wife made us some Nepali milk tea, which was delicately spiced and richly flavored. I then proceeded to the barber shop and entered only to find both barbers hard at work on two heads. The man, nicknamed "Yogi" after the cartoon bear, commented on my beard in a surprised and delighted tone. I seated myself and waited a while, entertaining myself by watching the sports news--a young woman who was training to be a champion weight lifter, an aggressive judo trainer who was enormous and stern-faced, a woman pro-golfer who won some award. Eventually, they asked if i wanted my haircut, and i humbly told them i simply wanted to say hello and that i saw they were busy, whereupon they smiled and told me to come back later when i wanted a haircut. It really is a shame that their haircuts are so expensive, otherwise i would actually go. After this, i went to see about my plane ticket at the travel cafe, and was told that my flight would be nearly 2000 dollars. Naturally, i became nervously confused, because the previous time i was told a figure closer to 500. I then went to the international center and was advised to go to a certain travel company, which i quickly did. Once i got there, i sat down with a woman who spoke to me and Japanese and got my basic travel request. Another woman then sat down with me and spoke to me in slow but precise English, and for this i was thankful, and replied in slower English than she spoke. She informed me that the price would be about 600 dollars, a figure more to my liking. It seems that i will fly out of Narita airport in Tokyo. My plan is to travel to Tokyo in April and stay a few days, then fly out of Narita to LaGuardia. A noble plan, if i dare say so myself. Before this, of course, i must satisfy all my tourist urges, which may prove to be impossible. More on this later.

jazz festival

Two nights ago, ben and tracy, the Australian couple at work, composed of an overweight and mean-hearted girl and a tall skinny and usually witty guy, had their sayonara party. I could never figure out what it is he sees in her, as she has no outstanding good qualities, besides her proficiency for belching in the office. The party was at Big Brother's, the big American-owned sandwich shop in town that all the gaijin love to go to. Ironically, almost half of our students were there to celebrate too. Well, in reality, only the ones ben and tracy approved of, and this included some characters as well as some people who i liked as well. As soon as i walked in, one middle-aged student named Kyouko grabbed me and demanded that i sit next to her. The table was composed solely of students, and their speech was both rapid and mercilessly colloquial, but i managed to pick out some words to try and understand. When Kyouko realized i could speak a bit, she wouldn't stop chatting excitedly, so speedily that i often needed to remind her to slow down. It is funny how the personality of someone changes when they are allowed to speak their native tongue. Many of the students were much more cheerful and talkative, as was to be expected, and this made me eager to contribute and listen. After this obnoxiously loud and lively affair, i told some students i had to leave to go to the jazz festival i had a ticket for, which i bought from my boss. His fiance works in a jazz bar and was interestingly the singer at the first bar we went to. Two students, Kyouko and Noriko, joined me and they bought tickets at the door. After the first show, where i met my boss Calvin, they decided to head home, but expressed their excitement and joy at having spent the night with such a wild and crazy gaijin such as myself. Calvin and i then proceeded onwards and stopped at two more bars to see some shows there before we eventually retired to the gaijin karaoke bar where the "afterparty" was held. The first performance was a band composed of Calvin's fiance who played saxophone and sang, a trumpet, keyboard, electric guitar, drums, bass, and bass saxophone. The music they played was good and pretty standard for this sort of affair. The second bar was a smaller venue--this time a singer with guitar, electric guitar, piano, and drums. The singer was a middle-aged man who sang in Japanese to a variety of interesting tunes, ranging from rockabilly to calypso. The third and final performance was the most impressive. The singer was a too-pretty 20-something boy with a dyed blond perm and a loose shirt hanging over his tall and thin body. Needless to say, his singing was extraordinary, and he even did some improvisational skat, smacking his chest to get the sounds out of his throat. The piano player and drummer were evidently artists as well as musicians, and i say this because unfortunately, all musicians are not artists. These musicians, especially the pianist, could speak through their music, in a language that is impossible to articulate in words, and that is just as impossible to receive in a language able to be articulated. The drummer was dressed like a "sarariman" (salary man in japanese-english, which means white collar-worker) with a faint moustache. It was funny to see the stereotypical image of a Japanese businessman rocking away on the drums like a madman during his solos. After all this at the karaoke bar, i sang until my throat was hoarse and i sounded like crap, and got home late. Nothing eventful happened here, as usual, except that an extremely drunk and insane Japanese woman crept up behind me and sunk her teeth into my shoulder, then proceeded to hump my leg like a dog. After the pain subsided, i told her i was a married man, and she bent over, nearly falling to the floor, and whispered in my ear, "It's okay. It's okaaay...", and trailed off with a spacy look in her eyes.
Onward!

setsubun

Before i attempt to explain Sestubun, i must attend to a matter of utmost urgency. Michael, my second roommate named Michael who is in fact evil, unlike the charmingly wicked yet inwardly good first Michael, has bought a box of cookies. This is not important in itself, but what the box itself reads is: "Country Ma'am - Chocochip Cookies Gianduja". At first i was baffled by this name for cookies, cookies that look harmlessly similar to the ones i am used to. I then realized that this "Gianduja" probably meant "Grandma", so to emphasize the home-made goodness of said cookies. This is the most horrendous spelling error i have ever seen in any product, if this mistake is in fact truly a mistake, and not some bizarre foreign language or reference to the deliciousness of the cookies in some secret code. Onward.
Setsubun is the day that lies on the separation between winter and spring on the old Japanese (and probably Chinese) calender, upon which spring starts the year. On this holiday, one must eat a long sushi roll, uncut, held out like a trumpet of nori seaweed and rice, and consume it without stopping for air in the direction of most luck, which this year is south-west. I couldn't make this up if i tried. And it's not over. For in the evening-time, the family gathers round and the father puts on his "oni" (ogre) mask. Once he has this mask on, he marches to the corner and awaits his peril: a relentless barrage of raw soybeans. Yes friends, the rest of the family viciously pelts the poor father with beans while screaming "Oni wa soto, fuku wa uchi!" (bad luck out, good luck in!). This might be akin to Yom Kippur, except much more savage and with many more beans. After this beastly celebration, the family once again gathers and eats their age in steamed beans. The poor youngins will probably go to bed hungry, unable to sleep because their grumbling stomachs will keep them up, while the poor grandmas with their tender and tiny stomachs will most likely be up all night too, although with their heads hanging over the toilet and properly practicing "oni wa soto".
I ate a long sushi roll in observance of Setsubun, although i did not have my compass on me, and therefore could not procure the good luck that was promised me. I could have guessed which direction to devour my sushi roll, but i thought better of it considering that a different direction might contain bad luck, or even DEATH.