August 27, 2004
Me and Tory
This one goes out to a young man who never lets me forget the meaning of life and pop music. Nuff said.
The Last Supper
Julie, Dan, Tory and I on my last night in New Orleans. What would we eat? Japanese food, of course. In honor of all the great, 'enlightened' meals that me and Fern, Beer, Doug, Haddy, Kara, Tony and the crew had at Mikitmoto. You guys rock!
Mom and Pud
Much love to those who saw me off at the airport. You know who you are, as you are pictured here but that meant a lot to me.
New Bride
Thanks a bunch to Arthi and Fern for putting up with me for those long couple of days. Congrats on the wedding also. Sorry Fern, I had no non-pornographic pictures of you to put on the web, but I love you none the less.
Whats that smell?
Mad love to all those who braved the bathroom at Balcony Bar for this picture. That last night in New Orleans was crazy fun.
Nagahama Fireworks
On the first weekend that we were in town there were fireworks in a town a couple of train stops north of Hikone called, you guessed it, Nagahama. There are about 20 JETs stationed there so we have made several trips back to Nagahama since.
The fireworks were on a beautiful night. I dont know how many people were there but I would wager at least 100,000. There are fireworks displays like this one all over Japan during the summer. This fireworks lasted about a hour. Which I think is pretty long. The largest display in our prefecture last about an hour and a half. Needless to say I have seen nothing even close to this in the States.
Like New Orleans, the Japanese love their festivals, I have been to five to date, in less than a month. The teenagers have a great time, they get all dressed up in their summer kimonos and wooden slippers and commence to spend all their time text messaging with their cell phones to people who are standing a half a block away. Its somehow comforting to know that teenagers are the same all over the globe.
I had an awesome video clip to show you but it was too large to put on the sight so you will have to make due with a couple of pictures.
Nagahama Fireworks 2
After the fireworks we were on the roof of the apartment building setting off some of our own. I caught this on with the long shutter speed on the camera, a pretty cool effect if I do say so myself, and I do!
Crazy Girls
When we were leaving the fireworks we sat across from these crazy high school girls. That was some illaborate make up there. They didnt speak a word of English but every kid in Japan wants their picture taken. Peace!
Hikone Dance Festival
One of the first events when we (me and the other Hikone JETs) got to Hikone was the Hikone Dance Festival. Little did we know that we would be one of the main attractions at said Festival. We arrived at the Board of Education at about 5:30 pm and they had an awesome spread of food for us there. Sushi and several other Japanese delights. Not to mention more beer then I have ever seen in my life. We ate all we could, drank all we could, and then headed to the festival, but not before we got dressed. We wore these japanese garment called ukata and then we had to pick a mask. Of course, I picked pooh because we all know that I am just a big teddy bear :)
Hikone Dance Festival 2
This is a picture of my tanto-sha. Basically my boss at the Board of Education. He is highly genki (outgoing, we will say) really cool guy, especially when you get a few drinks in him. His name Isozaki sensei.
Hikone Dance Festival 3
Here we are in all our glory. The people in the picture are all the JETs in Hikone. Doug, he is a second year, and a big john clone if I have ever seen one, Rachael and Eric, they are engaged, and Colette, a U of M grad of this past year. Doug and Colette live in the same apartment building as me so I see a lot of them.
August 24, 2004
Doug on streets
After their concert, Doug and Shennon decided it was time to hit the streets. Well, I tell you, there is nothing funnier than two drunk guys walking on the streets of Tokyo, at 4 am, on Sunday, in Kimonos, followed by a big bald dude, taking pictures and laughing histerically.
Doug in Kimono
This is a picture of Doug (my New Orleans roommate) and Shennon in their hotel room. The hotel provided Kimonos for all guests so after a night of Jack Daniels these guys got the idea that they were rock stars. So true!
If you look closely at the bottom of the pic you can see the feet of the great one.
August 21, 2004
First time in Tokyo
Well, I landed in Tokyo Narita Airport and we proceded directly to the Hotel. Nice joint. The Keio Plaza hotel. Rooms were spacious and its hard to beat the bidet. The conference itself was pretty pointless. It made me think of all those New Orleans Public School workshops I ever went to. But, we got to see Tokyo, all the bright lights and intense advertising. I have never been so frightened in all my life. Whatever those ads were for I had to buy, it was amazing because at the time I was completely illiterate in Japanese, so I had absolutely no idea what the heck they were trying to sell me.
When we headed to our prefecture (Shiga) we got to ride the shinkansen (bullet train) This train apparently travels at 24o miles per hour! Thats pretty damn fast.
While we were in Tokyo station waiting for the train, I had a little mishap. I had been carrying my EXTREMELY heavy bags for a couple of blocks. As we got on the up escallator, I put my bag down and lost my balance and fell down. Right on top of other JET people and a few random Japanese people (heretofore know as pancakes, I would give a millon dollars for a picture of the looks in their eyes, something like seeing Godzilla. he he) Anyway, all my life possessions are slowly on there way up as I am face down struggling to get up. My only thought was I had better get up before the top so I dont get sucked under. Highly hilarious. I had a few bumps and scapes and internal bleeding, but hey, its Japan, I can make an ass of myself and no one will notice.
Anyway, about 20 random strangers came up to me and asked if I was OK and brought me pieces of my lunch which apparently flew about 20 feet. Seriously, Japanese people are the nicest people I have ever met. They will walk 15 blocks out of their way to help you if you are lost. People from the board of education take me shopping after work because, 'it is their job". But they do it lovingly, it is really touching.
