The Balanescu Quarter - Computer Love

Well. It's been almost a whole month since I've written anything. Looks like I trailed off a bit on my blog duties. Such is life. It's been one crazy month since I rocked the blog. The family in Japan, a trip to China to see an old friend, a new school year, and hanami....all in the last month. Cripes. If there was a way to break it all down quickly I would...but there is so much to catch up on...China deserves it's own separate post. I'll get to that later.

In the meantime..

The Family

Wow. What can I say. I had an excellent time. And I will hopefully never have to do that again. There's a lot of things I forgot about living in a foreign country. Like how complicated everything seems. And how helpless you are. Now that I've been here a while I can pretty much do most things effortlessly. The trip to China reminded me of how insane-o foreign countries are.
I simply forgot that Japan is a 'foreign country.' I think of it more as home now than anything. So yeah, that was one taihen trip. Looking after 3 people at all times really was a lot of work. Ordering for everyone, carting everyone around, making sure everyone had their tickets, chopstick use instruction, etcetcetcetcetc...Monday night made it all worth while though. A nice-sized group of friends at Takako's bar and The Hook with Kyoichi debut show. Everyone had a great time, myself included. Food, family, drinks, friends. It was a fucking blast.

There is one thing that happened that still kind of pisses me off. A good example of ye olde closet racism in Japan. When we arrived at the hotel the staff spoke English and so I let Dad take care off all the dirty work. He was paying for it, after all. I didn't have to say a thing and frankly I was happy for that. I'd be their voice for the next week so I was more than happy to let someone else take care of the bill while I could. So the guy asks for the bill and Dad whips out cash and I start to tell him....Whoa...You should pay with the card. You will need that cash. Of course I turned out to be wrong but...that was before I knew how much stuff we would get to that week. I had a lot planned. So the hotel guy had already started writing up a bill for cash and Dad asked him if it was ok if he payed with a credit card instead. The hotel guy gave him a huge smile and then said in bad English: "That is no problem at all, sir. Of course we can do that." Or some bullshit like that. Then he went back to work his paper work and under his breath said in Japanese "What a pain in the ass..."

I was so enraged. So fucking enraged. It's hard to understand how angry I was unless you've lived here. This country is known for excellent service. And the service is usually fucking superb but as a foreigner sometimes you get the shaft. However a straight up "what a pain in the ass" is something I hadn't even considered. The fact that this guy even let that slip.....Whether or not any of us could understand him....guh....I could feel my face getting hot from all the blood rushing to it. I was boiling with anger. Finally I asked this jackass in not-so-polite Japanese "What's a pain in the ass?" As soon as I opened my mouth the other employees behind the desk became visibly agitated. His initial response was kind of a "huuuuaaaA?" like "what the fuck?" So I repeated myself: "You said "what a pain in the ass" so I'm asking you...what's a pain in the ass? Paying by credit card?" The fucking little weasle immediately grinned and said in very polite Japanese: "Oh no sir, I'm sorry. My english is very bad so you misunderstood me. I was speaking Enlgish but my English is very bad." At this point I had two options. Yell at the dude and tell him to fuck off and give us a discount....or just let it slide and finish cheking in smoothly. I opted for number two as to not freak out my very jet lagged family. Just another day in Xenophobistan. Round eye can't understand our master language.

Other than that the week was great. I think the fam really enjoyed getting to see the environment I've been living in for the past two years. My Dad said "Even if we end up paying for this trip for the next ten years...it was worth it." That's a lot coming from him. My Mom and Sis seemed pretty impressed/overwhelmed by the whole thing. That makes me think it was a good first trip to Japan. You should end up leaving with some kind of a "huuuuuuuuuh?????" feeling.

The only thing that threw me for a major loop was my parents. They are getting old. I was glad they got over when they could. I'm not sure they could do it again in a few years...I haven't been around much since I left for college in 1998. Not that I intended to make myself scarce around the homestead...I just have had other things going on in my life. My parents have really aged and I hadn't noticed it at all until they got here. We had a lot of things planned but only got to about half of it all. They just couldn't keep up. The pace of life here is just so fucking fast and sometimes it takes an old couple like Maw and Paw O'Reilly to remind me of it. I was somewhat shocked when I realized damn...my parents aren't invincible. When I was young I just assumed they would always be around and nothing short of a major natural disaster could kill them. Of course I was wrong, but until I hung out with them everyday for a week I hadn't realized it. It was great to see them but they are aging. It's weird.

Hanami

Ohhhhh boy. Hanami this year. Did not exactly go as planned. What was supposed to be a quick trip to Yoyogi Park for Cherry Blossom Viewing turned into quite a drunken debacle. I had planned on going for a quick drink before heading out to Naoko's house warming party but...things didn't go quite as planned. Demian and I arrived at 430 or so only to find out that Kento wouldn't be arriving until 6 or 7. Then Kento said the one thing that I didn't want to hear. The one thing I had feared he would say. It was also the one thing I knew he was going to say. "Junsuke should already be there..." Yup.

Junsuke. The Mayor of Douchebag City.

Junsuke isn't a bad guy or anything. He's just one of those dudes that insists on speaking in broken, terrible English despite the fact that I can carry on a conversation just fine in Japanese. And sure enough, as soon as I called him:

"Sean? I am bridge."

"*What? Where are you guys?"

"Hello? Sean? Where?"

"*Yeah. We are by the fountain. Where are you guys?"

"Grey shirt."

"What? I can't understand you. What are you saying? Where are you?"

"Bridge. Anooo. Hunsui! Bridge! Grey shirt."

"*Ok. The fountain by the bridge. Just wait at the bridge. We are on are way."

*Starred means Japanese spoken. Notice that King Douche didn't use any Japanese.

Finally we met up and went to the tarp Junsuke had set up. There weren't many people there. Four, aside from us and Junsuke. Right away Demian and I went to work on a bottle of shochu. By the end of the night we had finished that off, smoked some hash with Kento in the middle of some trees, and taken a mighty shot of some expensive tequilla that was probably a double or triple shot now that I think about it. I kinda lost track of what happened after that. Next thing I know I'm on the floor of Akabane station wishing I had left the tequilla and shochu alone. Too late. I crawled home and didn't even make it to Naoko's. Oh well. I had a good time. We also managed to swindle all that booze out of Junsuke for free. Haha.

School

Yup. A new year has begun. Things are pretty fucking crazy right now. So busy. I've been at school from 8am to 6 or 7pm every night. A new teacher to train. A new group of kids to work with. Things are going pretty well this year. I'm looking most forward to teaching the ADHD/LD English class. Two reasons. 1) The kids are great. They are sometimes hard to handle but they are so sweet and genuinely interested in learning that teaching them is a breeze. 2)Okay, the first reason is nice but the real reason is because I'm going to be working with this absolutely beautiful young girl at our school. She's a first year teacher. So hot. In fact, I can hardly wait to go over our lesson plan tomorrow. Just to be near her.

Hot damn!
-Mr. Taylor