SW Chicken Sandwich

This has nothing to do with Japan. It's just an awesome sandwich I made the other day.

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-boiled Chicken, then cubed or shredded, mix with mayo and chipotle seasoning
-pepper jack cheese (melt on chicken)
-jalepenos (lotta 'em)
-tomato
-avocado
-egg
-olives
-lettuce or spinach
-bread, toasted and buttered

Kids Are Dumb

I was at a shop in Asakusa last weekend, looking for some ninja stars. While I was there I overheard a conversation in English. A father was asking his son if he wanted a bow. The son replied "I can make one of those in five minutes." I was kind of stunned but the kid looked like he was twelve and most people that age are retarded. The conversation between this dad and son quickly became more outlandish, with the son making wilder claims. After about a minute of this, the dad says, in Japanese "Speak Japanese!". I turned my head and realized that I was dealing with some spoiled hafu (half Japanese, half something else). They didn't switch but I wish they would have. His stupidity wouldn't have been shielded by another language, as I would have followed him, stealthily; like a ninja.

Beetle bodies

Check out these beetles I found outside my apartment. They're pretty huge and valuable. The males can be sold upwards of $100 in Tokyo. If only I knew a seller...

Summer is halfway over

This summer has gone by fast and I've been having too much fun. It's been a relatively mild summer compared with the past two I have experienced. I really wish I could have made it back to the US to visit all my friends but the airfare is ridiculous. I still haven't been back. At least I'm trying to make the best of it. My sister will be here in two days. I'm looking forward to that. I'll try to get back into the swing of things with my blog and videos. I bought a new hard drive, so I have the space! That's all for now! Later!

Death and Taxes

I'm going into my third year here in Japan and it seems like the taxes just keep going up and up.  Last year it wasn't so bad.  This year, I am curious how I will manage.  I think it's time to be super frugal.  

Healthy Debate

Many of my elementary schools this year have requested that, if I'm not teaching English, I should participate in a class. This makes downtime unexistant, which is something I'm fine with. I usually request to be placed in a class where I wont get bored; PE, art, music, and science are always at the top of my list. The other day, I was placed in PE, with about twenty highly energetic third graders. I arrived to class about a minute late, they were already stretching. As they counted off in Japanese "一、ニ、三…" I decided to rebel and see who would follow. "one, two, three, four..." I said with a grin. The eight count finished and two boys standing in front of me followed (as I was a leader). I soon became curious how many kids would join. I began to push. The field of students was about four wide and five deep. A grid of twenty with two leaders and myself in the front. I had already infected two. So I pushed... We completed the sixth stretch, I had the entire front row was counting in English. At this moment, the Vice principle appeared and a small argument broke out. I continued to push... The boy, in the front row farthest from me got into a debate with a girl leading the stretches... ---Translation--- Leader girl, "count in Japanese". Boy, "I want to count in English" "you are Japanese, you are not American, count in Japanese" the girl said in a bossy tone. "Vice Principle! Can I count in English?" he said with no hesitation. "Count in whatever language you want" Checkmate. I was satisfied. Not only did I give the kids a chance to speak in English, I gave them a small lesson in rebellion. The class finished off their stretches in unison; "six, seven, eight".

ALT's have too much free time

Family and friends back home often ask me what I do for work.  Of course I teach English but in all honesty, about three quarters of the time I'm completely free.  This gives many people the opportunity to study Japanese, read books, or what you should do; prepare a lesson (who does that?)  I kid, I kid.

Recently, I started to animate in my free time.




Enjoy

L is for Luigi

A while back, I was teaching some fourth graders.  The kids were making sketches of their family, which they would introduce later, infront of class.  Each student had to scribble down something that 'their person' liked.  One boy wrote down that his father liked ''baseball''.  Of course, he wrote it in Japanese but in katakana.  I could at least read it (I still can't quickly recognize the kanjis for baseball 野球).  Being the way I am, I ask him to write it in English.  He didn't know how to spell so I said each letter for him.  When he go to 'L', he was stumped.  Right when I was about to help him, a boy sitting infront of him, whips around and says in Japanese 'L, like Luigi'.  A light burst through the boys head and he was able to complete the word.

brutal honesty

While walking to an assembly today, I turned to a boy next to me 


''Do you like meat?''


 him ''Yeah I do'' 


''Do you like meetings'' 


without hesitation ''NO, I DON'T''. 


Keep that brutal honesty kid.

brandon - part 2 of 2

In part two of the series, we complete the second 'half' of our journey.  To be honest with you, it's not really the second half.  Part one covers the first day and a half while part two covers the next four or five days.  Shooting video gets tiring and eventually, I want to relax and have fun as well.  The last two days Brandon was here have no video footage at all.  I have no video of him where I live.

After that day in Tokyo, we went north and stayed at my place.  The next day we played video games.  The day after, we went back to Tokyo and hung out, all night, until the next day.  There is a lot missing.  

There are also some stories I want to tell about the trip but didn't mention.  At one point, Brandon lost his iPad.  He didn't realize it until about an hour after it was lost.  We had to back track our steps and we found it in the same place it was left.  That story I will save for later.

Generally speaking, this is why many of the travel videos I make are more segment like and less story like.  In order to create a story, your camera always needs to be on.  If you're going to do a segment, you can be more selective.  Anyway, that's all I've got.

Brandon in Shibuya

Brandon Comes to Visit!

Fire Festival - 須賀川 2011

I am the worst at being consistent with posting videos.  The worst.  One month later.  Please enjoy.

Japanese Summer Festival - 那須 与

It's been around a month since I posted. I finally managed to squeeze this one out today. I managed to get most of it done yesterday and it only needed a few extra bits for today.

Next will be the 'Fire Festival' I attended this past Fall. I think after that, I have nothing left so I will probably start swinging hard at the winter break videos. I'll be trying to keep them to around seven total episodes. Probably somewhere around three for Korea and four for the Philippines. I'm not sure yet, I need to review my footage. If I came out with a total of five, I'd be more happy.

Well, thanks for watching and reading!