4/17/2006 Well, most of you, at least those who are not my enemies, have already seen most of my shots from my latest spur-of-the-moment trip to the land of 9-5 ATM machines, but because Mr. Pek keeps cryin' and moanin' like a japanese schoolgirl, let me give you a brief summary of what happened...well nothing happened, although my liver has deteriorated again for some reason..hmmmm
Long story short..got notice from UCLA that I got the job, give my two weeks' notice, check out flight prices, but a flight, make sure that there will be people over there to see me, and...4 days to pack! And what a flight it was! Korean Airlines, strongly recommend it to anyone, cheapest, more space between your seat and the one in front, great food, your own TV with about 50 movies to choose from,plus games, comedies, documentaries, and really hot stewardesses. makes me almost giggle like a schoolgirl. Well the flight there was absolutely packed with japanese students - aka those suckers with bad teeth who put up with criminally high prices just to learn English - of course 90% of which were ladies. As it is customary in this world, the airline gods not only placed me far away from the honey pot, but this time I was graced by being placed next to a 40yr old very friendly single homo who insisted I should work out my arms. After 10 hours of that, it got pretty uncomfortable. But eh, things we do to reach the motherland...
Anyway, once in Nagoya, the one and only Filipino Hooker was there to make me forget all the plane troubles, straight to the convini to buy some delicious Yebisu (which, I found out later, is made by Sapporo - c'mon you didn't know that!)
First impressions...as it was already the second time back since my 2-year stay that ended in '04, there weren't any "ooohs" or "aaahs" on my part, well of course after a nice gulp of Yebisu there was some, and also when I was run over by the massive crowds in the cities...but other than that it was all "been there, done that, done that too, done her, done," and that is a tragedy isn't it? oh well, I had other things in my mind... plastic girls...more plastic girls...and, finally, divorce from dem plastic girls... trash, or at least that efficient recycling system that I abhor(red); ah yes, Engrish; and the handy dandy drink ticket that is given everytime you pay a ticket to go dancin'...why don't they do it here too? cheap b***ASTARDS! The second day was clearly extra-emotionally charged, not having seen the lady in about a year, so after meeting up in a neat cafe'/ramen shop (only in Japan that can happen) we went to this awesome ryokan with an awesome onsen, Suihouen, with an awesome tab of $400 a night. Eh, what can you do, I am just soooo rich. the food was huge part of the stay in that cheap hotel, and the service was amazing, but - permit me to be cheeky cheesy ..... my own personal service was the best...yum!
A 7-hour train trek sneaked up on our amorous bliss, and the day after we found ourselves where it all began...SAKU, the land of Jusco, Nakagomi and the now-defunct Usuda-machi. well, you know the comedic story of my engagement - if you don't know, well you missed out on a couple of minutes of gaijin humour - so this is what ensued...more amazing food! what characterizes my old stompin' grounds now is the presence of a good number of kaiten sushi places all in competition with each other...so, I figured, why not be adventurous, anyway I will be going to sushi places a dozen more times in my 7 days remaining... although I generally love all kinds of food, alive, dead, raw, cooked, swimmin', flyin', crawlin', dancin', this particular duo was as bad as it looks.... Well, I was glad to be in Saku just to be with my new family...I am so glad and proud to finally be part of it our trip continued to Tokyo, where I gave my native Japanese partner a tour of her own culture and heritage...what a world! anyway, we were very lucky to catch Tokyo in full sakura bloom...this is Asakusa with its Senso-ji temple and market...and good snacks and beers heheh one thing NOT to do during sakura season, if you are looking for a quiet space where to chillax, is GO TO PARKS - especially Ueno...seas of pure drunkenness under the trees in bloom...hanami! Apparently, the latest fashion in the city for guys is being - yyup- a nerd and - if you are a girl - not so much being dressed as a slutty schoolgirl, nor as a ganguro (although that was already out also when I lived there) nor as gothic-lolita (or mini-retardo as I call it)..but as a maid! it's quite popular over there more now than ever. And, I like. we didn't stay in Tokyo just to buy cameras and stare at mediocre-looking maids, but also to get our drink on, first at the infimous Buttu Trick Bar (do your own jokes) and then in and around Shibuya and finally in the Ueno area. No crazy club night as it was originally planned....but, it finally happened, not in Tokyo, but back in Nagano-ken (of all damn places!) where we returned on Saturday to partied in a mountain-resort-turned-wild-reggae-beach to watch our own Rie make the crowd go wild! of course, we shouldn't have gone back to Nagano without saying hello to the family...so to avoid them we hid in Ogosso, the brand new bar of our fellas of En...amazing sochu and...whale meat (and some whale tendons, but those were not so tasty) Looks like it was a good time! (I don't remember)
The day after we were back in Nagoya to re-meet the Flip Hooker, oh I shouldn't say that considering how racist or sex-related such terms are, and they should never ever be used in public, or god forbid, in public display yep, it's pretty bad...if you're "full of ability" you are screwed We then left the sin-city of Nagoya to head back to Gifu-ken and meet up with Keiko's friends who made us an amazing strawberry cake (along with many appropriate strawberry coolers, but that's another story) best of friends but a crazy pair, he's in love with her but she just won't cave in. anyway, we went to one of the most famous cities in Japan, Takayama, just to pretend we were tourists...one of the best places we saw was the San-Machi-Suji, or the old village, and one of the fewest ancient places that was not a temple, the Takayama Jinya, the old Shogun's representative building...not too shabby for a bureaucrat eh? mmm and the famous Hida beef, marbled up, very oishiiiiiii and almost cheap too (but not quite!) the day after we (the saner couple) spent the night at another onsen ryokan called Minorisou, only $200 less than the other one, and it showed...look, I don't look like a samurai anymore but like a fish-stinky servant! between silly poses around the streets of Gero, one lucky boy was caught giving a little ring to his girl (the comedy here? the ring's gotta get resized!! (-__-!) "goodbyes" and "see you this summer - for good"s were tough as hell, but back in Nagoya the Hooker was there with his drinkies and his ring of ladies, thankfully Memorable, was our visit to the Asahi beer factory, where the company offers, for free, a tour of the manufacturing processes and beer-sampling (aka an all-you-can-drink chug contest before the 20 minutes expire) oh boy, that was a good idea... these flowers looked waaay better after the Asahi learning experience As usual, I have to thank the hooker for these nature shots, I couldn't have taken them better, especially at the time, with more beer on one hand and hot octopus balls on the other well, my last hours in Japan were packed full of memories and just like the other times it was really sad coming back...but I have learned one lesson that I will treasure forever:
