off for a little SE asia sightseeing...

shooto fight in fukushima

yesterday i went with my kboxing coach and 13 guys from the gym to a fight in fukushima city. we piled into 3 cars and left kameda at 6am to get there in time for weigh-in. some of the guys are often on the brink of their allotted weight and if they're over they're not able to fight their assigned opponent. so none of them eat or drink anything 24 hours prior to weigh-in. when we got their, they all stripped down to almost nothing and lined up for the scale. (yeah...there's a reason i went). apparently sometimes if they're over weight by a fraction of a kilo, then they'll take off everything and stand on the scale cupping themselves haha.
the first part of the morning fights were brazilian jiu-jitsu, which is a kind of japanese jiu-jitsu tailored to the brazilian standards of no-holds-bard fighting and then re-imported back to japan. there were two guys from our gym also competing in those matches. i also met a guy originally from nagaoka who had just moved back from 5 years living in arizona, where he did NHB cage-fighting.
there were about 11 guys from our gym competing shooto (kickboxing + grappling). of the 11 who fought, 8 of them won their fights and one got MVP of the day. unfortunately one guy had to go the the hospital after his fight because of a broken nose, optical bone, and cheek bone. he bled all over the tatami mats and my coach went to get him from the hospital after the fights were over...
after the day was over we piled back into the cars and headed back to niigata. sugoi tanoshikatta.

yuusuke the MVP champ

kazeta san (my coach) watching yuusuke fight

yuusuke winning

sakai san kicking ass (or, head)
and winning

he's proud of those abs.
wrapping up
and winning

justine...

is annoyed.
her eye has been constantly twitching since sunday. jon says she needs to drink more fluids. last time she went to thailand her eye twitched for the entire three weeks.
justine is annoyed that her desk is beside the door. between 245pm and 4pm it is constantly being opened, for the freezing cold air to waft in and envelope her. she has constant goosebumps all day long.
justine lost it on her 1-nensei class today, who were being a bunch of little *shitbags*. she hasn't lost her temper in a really really long time. *SHITbags*.

my little niece

video site

http://www.dropshots.com/shibatashibata

after the shibata show

doing the speech with jon and troy. am i really that much taller than jon?

puri-kura

jon, kazuya, casanova and i did print club the other day.

ok well

there are just a couple of things i have to write about today.
one is a little story about jon. jon was sitting at his desk the other day at school, when an old man came into the teacher's room. jon says this man comes in sometimes for 2 hours in the morning, but he has absolutely no idea why or what he actually does at the school. this man likes to speak to jon in his crazy english "you are very fine today?" and jon politely goes along with it. so the other day the man starts talking to jon about music. "music you like?" with jon saying "yep. yep, i like music". then the guy produced a box of ping pong balls. he said to jon "this is music instrument" and started tapping the box and shaking it around. then he gave it to jon as a 'present'.
the other story is about anna. she was at home the other day, when she heard someone at her door. when she went to it she saw a man inside her house in the genkan, holding a pair of pants. he was speaking japanese, but through gestures and broken conversation, anna deduced that he wanted her to try on the pants. because he had made them special. she held them up and saw that they were a pinned-together tear-away pear of crotchless trousers. upon realizing this, she yelled "DAME DESU!" and made him get out of her house.
wtf?

started at shiunji JHS...

...today. i'll only actually be coming here twice as it turns out, as i'll be starting up elementary school again on mondays next school-year (april).
this school is the oldest school i've ever been to. it's a 20 minute drive, near the beach, surrounded by tall cedars and japanese gardens. the toilet stinks like an outhouse and the entire building, in and out, is peeling paint. but it's somewhat charming nonetheless, and the kids are friendly.
it's blizzardy today...

well it's monday again

ooo i am sore.
i finally went back to kickboxing after a two week haitus due to injury and rachel's visit. ha i feel like every inch of me is bruised.
next week i'm going to accompany a bunch of the guys to fukushima for a fight. i'm going to be the hand wrapping/video taping chick. hehe! but i'm really looking forward to it! should be a fun experience.
er what else did i do this weekend? went to a taiko performance with lins in seiro. they had two kodo guests with them and it was very impressive!
saturday night the musical was in shibata. my board of education sponsored the stage rental and they wanted me to make a cameo appearance, so i had to (got to?) do the closing speech. "give us money".

also did puri-kura with cas, kazuya and jon. some of the best yet. wish i could scan them.

rachel and tom in shibata

at wara wara: glen, anna, pamela, misael and rachel

kazuya and tom!

______________________________________________

in shibata we went to an izakaya for drinks and karaoke, went to the beach, went to the jpns garden (shimizuen), went for sushi, went to indus (my fav! indian restaurant), and pretty much did all my usual shib things.

in shibata

beach

casanova, jon, kazuya

rach and me

Shima Onsen...mini road trip

do i look frustrated?
our "mini road trip" to shima onsen (hot spring town in gunma prefecture)...turned into a bit more of an ordeal when on the way there i missed the turn off on the expressway (adding 2 hours).
however, when we finally made it to the ryoukan, the kind hospitality of our hosts made everything all right. shima is a tiny little onsen town in the mountains, with not much to it but a few ryoukans, restaurants, and hot springs. it was freezing! which made a dip at night the perfect thing before bed.
...or before tom and i stayed up watching crazy japanese television and pissing ourselves laughing for two straight hours. and then pissing ourselves laughing at rachel talking in her sleep...
the next day, we decided to drive to the monkey onsen in nagano prefecture (which was somewhat on the way back). after driving for 2 hours up a mountain road and coming within probably 20 minutes of the onsen, the road was suddenly closed off due to snow. there was no way around, which meant almost completely retracing our steps....
i was not happy.
but it was a nice drive through the japanese alps ne!

Shima Onsen

in our tatami room. when we got there, tom and rachel looked at the room and were like, 'What? where are the beds???"

kawaii!

outdoor bath at our ryoukan. rach was like "what? i have to get naked with You?"

apparently this is the oldest onsen in japan (on the left). it's 500 years old or something. we didn't go in. (it was closed for the day).

typical toks

busy harajuku

shinjuku

rach in harajuku

some tokyo pics, yoyogi park

"catch!"

some tokyo pics

wedding at meiji shrine

priest at meiji shrine (really?)

old woman at meiji shrine