Moomin in Japan

His carrots are juicy,

It's Chris Akabusi!

Hallowed hullos to you all including previous un-emailed types cranking it leek-side. You know who you are!

The past 10 days have seen my musical and schooldays comrade Colin make the brief trip over the bullet riddled sea from Korea and wander the land like Bruce Banner on a noodle-heavy diet. As I have shambled into school each morning he has done a me and walked for countless hours around various metropolitan areas sucking in the atmosphere through our respective experience-baleens. One for the marine biologists there.

On Saturday we went along to a little tour of my city to bash some of the obvious tourist spots that none of us living here have bothered our hoops to see, namely the castle and the towel museum. Nor will we likely bother our hoops going there ever again. Now to be fair, in both cases there was a Ronseal (exactly what it says on the tin) level of fulfillment to both spots. The castle, was just that. And the towel museum had towels and was indoors. Tick and tick.

However the castle was  5 hard earned squids to get a bit of a view of the monochrome drear of my town from a height. Oh, and some ostentatious and possibly quite old pyjamas.

The museum had 4 floors of towel shops to march through before you hit the museum, and after a few towel machines cranking away you had to walk for a kilometer passed all manner of Moomin paraphenalia. Moomin?

Moomin!

So the vast majority of the museum merely showed a bunch of these mercury poisoned hippo-eunuchs recreated in towel form. And halfway through there was a Finnish tourism board booth, with brouchures and posters. Another stunning victory for the Finns.

It's the bollocking Sarajevo winter olympics all over again! Damn you Marja-Liisa Kirveniemi

Once the tour had.... Finn-ished (eh?..... EH?) we all trundled out via local bus into the surrounding hills to go to a party for a local friend of ours whose parents had opened the doors of a holiday home they have to all of us eejits. The bus dropped us in a car park up a hill and gradually we were ferried up via a not maintained piece of country death trappery thatr at times beggared belief. So much so that when Meg was following my shoddy directions up the hill she stopped 2 minutes from the house figuring any chance of it being the right way had stopped somewhere about all the time all the rubble appeared on the road. Thankfully she realised there was no way to get back down that didn't include going over a cliff into a river and subsequent hurried prayers to all the major deities (back of the line Ganesh!) 20 minutes after the time she had jokingly suggested I should set out to find her wrecked car (heh heh...) I was heading out into the inky night and she eventually turned up looking not unlike me that time we may have met a gerontophile. Do yourself a favour and don't look up that word.

The rest of the night was a mess of grilled meat and mixed drinks including some more or fewer awful stories from one fellow JET who it turned out lived in Cork for a few years. Now this guy has been mentioned in the emails before, mainly in conjuction with his knee slappingly funny story about purchasing Doritos in bulk and having a crack a Meg while she was holding my hand.

Apart from trying to enter the country illegally, driving an uninsured and untaxed car and selling knives door to door of dubious quality he may have diddled a "not very clever person" into paying an exorbitant sum for a cheap watch. On completion of the transaction, he "ran away laughing."

Hard to tell but we may get a clearer picture of the scene if we switch "not very clever" with "intellectually disadvantaged."

Yeah... I know.

Other highlights of the night included people getting their kit off at <insert small number here> in the morning to partake in the local hotspring bath that was downstairs and explaining to an American in which way he was holding his ciggarette like a scumbag (between the index finger and thumb.) Also met a young lady called Jun who may have served myself and Meg lunch back in Dublin, she used to work in Yamamori on the quays and wasn't one for missing work apparently.

For anybody whose playing fantasy football, I currently am innappropriately close to my cousin at the summit of the family league while Meg has unknowingly released the dragon by passing out Gridzer on the inside, while the former persists in her campaign of only buying players whose moral fiber she feels is beyond reproach. Just Brad Friedel and Wigans groundskeeper then.

There are few groups of men as odious as those in English professional football (footballers in other countries at least have the good grace to be gimpy in languages we can't understand) and I fear if she persists, Ingrid will fall to the level of a certain doomed Arsenal fan, who is slumping down the table like pooteen on a hockey puck (note to self: live with a Canadian less. And use better similes. And wash.)

Pictured: Gits

In other news I have just been told I will have to wow all the teachers again with my eye watering German-skills as we sing some Beethoven that they don't understand and haven't the wherewithal to pronounce anything close to correctly.

Isolated as they are, national stereotypes don't necessarily land here as they might elsewhere. For example the Irish stereotype is that we are from Iceland. The American stereotype is that they are internationally minded. And the German stereotype... from Japans perspective, is probably that they are a bunch of happy go lucky layabouts. Compared to the Japanese anyway.

Peace of cake,

Moomin in Japan

Boozes Korean in Japan

Who that flooring it on the way to Peckham?

It's the 400 year old neck of Victoria Beckham

A merry 2`sday to you all fellow living human types!

The past week got off to a flying start with one of my more talented students walking up to me after class and going "Sherdur." "Sher-DUR! After I recorded this and made it my ringtone we were able to figure out she was saying "Sheldon," particularly in that I looked like him. The character from BIG Bang Theory that is.

Not the wealthiest man in Nevada (apparently), the second guy

We then had ourselves a chinwag about a whole load of American programmes she's been watching on one of the cable channels that mysteriously got cut off from me after I closed the door in the face of the TV licence guy.

The main news of my week was however the arrival of C-dog. Too street for ya? Try C-money then. Bit more 90's. No?

It's Colin then. Colin's here. You joyless sons-a-b..

<dead air>

Yeah Colin came over from the good Korea (depending on which one you ask) for 2 weeks of being bowed at, stared at and generally verbed at. We met in Osaka airport on Saturday despite me judiciously standing at the wrong end of the terminal for an hour before I realised. Then he gave me the greatest gift a man can give another man in a public place without airport security getting antsy.

That's right, duty free Korean booze.

We then had a quick potter about Osaka before hitting the town. Japanese delicacies of the evening included cabbage pancake and the fresh genius that is an all-you-can-drink bar. An hour and a half of such boozy musings and we started wandering from bar to bar, into any old cack-lodge that took our eye. Lowlights of which were chatting with a gimpy perv of a barman in one Irish bar,

Gimpo-"Ohhooo, I bet you were looking at their legs there weren't ya!? Oh yyee're dirty feckers I can see it!"

Us- "Umm, any danger of you, getting our drinks and leaving those girls to ming in peace?"

On the plus side, sensing our distain he wormlike, felt the need to buy our love with some anti-IMF solidarity freebie drinks. Nice-u!

This probably led to my highpoint of the night where I asked how long a lady had been pregnant in a bar. In fact, looking at her roundbottomed flask of a belly I literally said "How long has there been a baby inside you?"

Her answer... "never"

Colin managed to pick up some rather persistent  attention from some lass who drew him multiple maps so he wouldn't get lost trying to find her the next night.

She was to be found at the brilliantly named "Clazy Market," not that we went there in the end. But I'm sure some lucky chap did. <sleazy smirk>

There was also a conversation with a Filipino guitarist we saw which we remember as being about musicians and how vital it is communicate across the false bonds of nationhood, a dream for the future, through the magic of 12 simple notes.

That said, it is as likely that it was like...

"Oh yeah man, we .. am.. guitar" (Hammett= Filipino by the way<reaches>)

We flogged around in a fairly chilled out fashion in Nara and Kyoto both and also hit a Brazilian meat restauraunt on the Sunday. And it hit us with a stomach stretching poundage of garlic steak and slow roasted everything. I've tasted the future guys, and it's roasted pineapple covered in cinnamon.

I've also seen the future but it mainly involves everybody in Europe pleasuring Asian businessmen for handfuls of corn meal. I for one welcome our rice-crazed overlords and remind them that my soft hands and well moisturised forehead mean I am a premier candidate for any positions they might have teaching their children, folding their ridiculous t-shirts or ratting out my countrymen to Beijing G-men.

In other news, Colin brings worrying news from over the water. They're a little less keen on us round-eyes over there and specifically there are a few Korean ultra-nationalist types who write articles in the paper going on about how we're paedos only sneaking in to try and satisfy our paedoy desires.

Indeed there is this chap who stalks foreigners in Seoul just to see what they get up to. He denies that it's stalking calling it "following." Clever Trevor. Some smart tack has even printed up t-shirts with the picture of the guy saying:

"Please tell me if this guy is behind me." 

Stonking. C-doodle arrives down to me on Thursday and is staying for a few days before heading back over to Kim Jong Newpants and the rest of that shower.

Boozes Korean in Japan

Kasabian in Japan

He's one fast learner,

It's Ike "the fist" Turner!

Re-arrived Christmas flavored hellos to you all!

After two weeks slithering around the land of my birth dousing myself with all solids and spirits that had the misfortune to cross my path I'm finally back sushi-side. Umm.. Hurrah!

Apparently this is visiting season as next weekend my dear ole chum Colin sidles into Osaka, my aunt Shena in March, Gridzer in April and Meaghans sister and chum in May. In case you were thinking about making the trip out then... piss off. Japan's full.

As is our spare room (please enjoy sleeping on a bed of our rolled up laundry guys, any brown stains are totally gonna be chocolate.) Once the last visitor goes home, it'll be a matter of weeks before I myself will be ducking out of this sweetest of gigs and back into the financially secure European way of life that has continued on apace since I left. I assume.

Oh a grand thank you to all the people who willingly (or otherwise) got their pictures taken by me so I could show some of my kids what white folks look like. Rest assured thay thought all of your names were ridiculous. Then again, such criticism is originating from 11 year olds called "Teppei" so I wouldn't lose an entire nights sleep over it.

Ireland was much as it always is although I did find myself being propositioned by more european females than I ever recall. I guess more accurately they were propositioned to me by their unctious male companions but I'm still taking the complement! (which I guess is that I looked like a "sure thing" or just someone so lonely that I might start making a scene if someone didn't say SOMETHING to me.... yayyy...)

One was some campy Swede (or Nordic of another type) pushing his admittedly rather dour friend upon me. Another was in a chipper the following night as the opening stages of World War 2 were played out in microcosm. A knowing Pole and a nervy Dutch girl were trying to limit the damage of speaking to some obnoxious German who was putting the moves on her. In keeping with the metaphor, I (the Irish guy) tried to keep out of the whole fucking mess only becoming embroiled when the German shoved me towards the Dutch girl and shrieked "KIISS WITH TONGUE!!!"

I quickly complemented Nijmegen University, whipped my burger off the counter (from the bitterly swearing Pole) and slinked off to the airport.

Pictured: Hitler on the tear on Dame Street

My trip back here was uneventful except that 5 seats ahead of me were Kasabian, heading out to their Japanese tour. Having never intentionally listened to them or nursed them as children I had little introduction-fodder so sat back and tried to get some sleep. I will say though that a cat-hat is not proper attire for a 12 hour flight to Tokyo... though to be fair in Tokyo itself you're basically gonna look like a fusty old local.

<withering sigh>

They were all in jeans skinny enough to make your ears bleed and gimpy little shirts. What a shower of fancy-Dans! The following 24 hour were spent trying to keep awake long enough to get on-get off the relevant trains and after leaving Ireland at 7 in the morning I was safely in bed at 8 in the evening. Albeit the following day.

Since then myself and the Megger have been making full use of the sudden excess of previously sparse resources (coffee, Barrys etc) and I resultantly have been a teeth chattering caffinated wreck. Another new addition to the house was a chess set I bought with the intention of drawing Meg into the cerebral dichromatic world of pinch nosed Russians and clock slapping. So far it's just led to a whole lot of Meg threatening to flip the board and to plug my face with some of the more invasive pieces.

As we exchanged gifts it became vastly apparent that I had underestimated the scale of things egregiously. Not telling specifics, my present to her was actually designed to fit inside her present to me.

In other news one of our fellow expats here got hisself another Japanese girlfriend who we met at dinner on Saturday night. Predictably the girl is a wisp of a thing and hopefully will be comfortable losing a lot of weight as she is currently dating a human food-hoover. I realise this is a little rich coming from fatty fat fat fat over here but I can only just about occasionally come up to the lowest hem of his level. Anyway we had to watch her as she attempted to lick the occasional piece of raw fish (scant reward for the effort involved frankly) that was already shooting towards his gaping maw. Or mawing gape. Ooh yes, the second one.

Alright then, I'm off to sneeze my way through another few days of school and then piddle off to tear a hole in Osaka with Colin who should be flying in on Saturday morning from lemon-Seoul.

In the meantime off diddily off off!

See yee on the merry morrow,

Kasabian in Japan