the one with the singing

Where to begin? It's been so long since I wrote my online journal I have such a task ahead of me tonight. Seriously think about sitting down right now and writing about your past month.. it gets boring when you already know what happens aye!.... Ok, I think the first thing I need to do is spit out this gum and go poor myself a nice Barcardi... hang on.... Ok. Done. Now while some of you find it sad I'm sitting here alone (Karen is out for a while) drinking on a Tuesday night I know that the majority of you (you know who you are) are very proud of this... so to you I say "kanpai". God that's a good mix... Ok next thing is some music.... Benny benassi... check. Ok begin.

To start off I will provide you with some statistics. As it should be of no shock to most of you know I am a huge top 5/10 fan and love thinking of things in terms of statistics... so this is for you

I can't believe that within the space of two minutes I could go from one all time low to another... but I did!!

No. of times I've actually played my new guitar = 3

No. of times I've picked up but not actually played my guitar = 15

No. of drinks bought from a vending machine since I arrived = 130+

No. of new types of food tried since arrival = 30+

No. of "kanchos" (fingers poked up my bum by kids) = 0 !! very proud

No. of times I have looked at a westerner and thought to myself "what are you doing in my hood!! Get lost..." = 10+

No. of times I have performed musical numbers to the public = 2

Top 5 activities for the classroom.. (the easiest to prepare!)

1. DVD - school of rock was the latest

2. Bingo - various forms

3. Slaps

4. Shiritori - word relays on the board

5. Fill in the missing words while listening to a song - usually Beatles

In chronological order the highlight events of the last month have been...

A Saturday that involved a festival in our town!! We actually hosted one for a change.. It was old school dudes riding in mean gears on horses firing arrows at targets. Very authentic looking costumes.. best ones I've seen here. Was very cool to watch the guys fly past not more that 5 meters away on the horse getting an arrow out of their back pouch then loading up and hitting a target, side on to them, smack in the middle!

The festival was cut short though as we went to Jamie's town to help him out with a kids Halloween party. Pretty funny as we rocked up in an assortment of costumes. Karen and I went as a monkey and pig respectively. Tan decked out as a Japanese grandpa.. pretty funny.

The following Monday a nearby town, Imari, hosted one of Japans biggest fighting festivals. We went there after school and witnessed some total carnage from across a river. Pretty much these guys (over 50 per team) spend the weekend meeting up in various parts of Imari and having semi-staged, but pretty serious, battles with these chariot things. They carry them round and are meant to weigh a hell of a lot. When they meet they then set them and smash them together like two hands with fingers interlocking... they each push them and then they fall back, or to the side. Many people get injured in the festivities of the weekend and the local news station keep the tally rolling so people know how well its going!! So the Monday when we went was the finale of it all where they meet by a river and always end up with the chariots falling in and having to be pulled out with the fastest team the winner. The two teams are on one side agricultural and the other fishermen. Traditionally the winning team was blessed with good luck for the year. On the night we watched it took 8 "clashes" before they finally ended up in the river exhausted. During that time a couple of people were rushed to hospital. One guy got smacked straight on the head after he fell in the river before the chariot and it landed right on him... over 500 kg falling on your head... a VERY minties moment indeed...

The following weekend provided a much overdue opportunity to go to a city for a huge night out. Didn't take much convincing and we had a crew of four of us ready to roll in the massiveness of Fukuoka. While it doesn't take much to make us inaka (country) ALTs wet ourselves with excitement over a city... I swear even wanganui would appeal to me now!!... Fukuoka really is a primo place.

Now I will just say off the bat that the Saturday night out in Fukuoka was one of the most fun random nights out of my life. While the following may sound pretty waste to some of you it totally rocked for us.. prob one of those "you had to be there" things... sorry.

So Karen, tan and I arrived. Did some mandatory shopping till Lisa showed up... then some more shopping until there was nothing left open. Next we headed on the tube to "hawks town" (the area around the baseball stadium) to go to Hard rock café. That is where the night truly took off... an hour or so later as we left with stomachs twice the size as when we entered and heads merry from some drinks. We hailed a taxi and headed to the cool area called Tenjin. First stop once there was a convenience store for some cans of Chuhai. Wanting to save money we had opted to have some pre drinks before heading to a bar for the Halloween festivities. We found ourselves a nice spot to drink on some subway steps after we had dumped our bags in a locker. We were actually sitting a couple of steps from some random dude who was in the midst of a merry old chat with...himself... nice.

After some planned sculling we met up with some people from Takeo and headed to Happy Cock. I kid you not that is the name of the bar we were going to. It was the place where the big Halloween party was happening. Pretty average place on any other night but we were on fire and so it didn't matter we had a great time.

Next on the list for us was some mindless wondering round the narrow streets meeting with the locals. Was great to finally see Karen shamelessly going up to locals and saying "sumimasen, Kakuii baaru...." Or something.. pretty much "excuse me, cool bar?" and waiting for a response.

We went to a karaoke bar... Karen broke her promise to NEVER sing karaoke ever in Japan... well done to her.. she lasted a month!! We now have the absolutely WORST, and I kid you not, movie of Karen and I, though its all me that's bad, singing bridge over troubled water. My god its bad.. so flat and for some reason I keep looking at the camera and grinning in this really cheesy was like "yeah... im the man..." I think to my defence I was waiting for a photo to be taken and didn't realise they were filming.... Oh dear.

Next up we went to Yoshinoya for some fast food Japanese style. (rice and stuff... but their equivalent of McDs). This was followed by us deciding to grab out gear from the lockers as it was fairly cold (about 5.45am). Hmm the only problem was the lockers wouldn't open until 7am so we were stuck.. at this stage we decided to hang out at the subway and so we slept on the floor in a corner... not one of the high points of my life granted... but refreshing nonetheless.... Karen though had other plans as she robbed me while I was sleeping and with the change she had taken went for a wonder and bought some more chuhai because why stop drinking when its 6.30 am right!!!

The next weekend in continuing fashion we proceeded to have a double header at a local bar called The Rain Beat. Good times. The Saturday was supposed to be the Saga Balloon festival (one of the biggest hot air balloon festivals in the world or something...). So we rock up there to see the night showing for the balloons only to be meet with some rain right before they are due to start cancelling the whole show!! Funniest thing was the lady over the intercom thing informing us that "its raining its so hard.... I'm sorry today's night time barrooning has been cancelled..." God bless her.

The next day ten of us met in Tosu to watch SaganTosu football team. Rumi, who was injured on our last visit had been given 10 premier tickets and was nice enough to invite us again. We were there with her family and then went out for dinner afterwards. The game itself was excellent though our team couldn't hold out for the win and drew 3-3. Very high skill level though and a cool support crowd. The train ride to Tosu was actually very memorable now I think of it. Karen and I grabbed an express train but then found it too full to sit down so were forced to stand in between carriages next to the toilets. Now I don't know if someone saw us standing there and went into the carriage and told everyone "hey guys, there's a couple of foreigners out there by the toilets... lets annoy the crap out of them and see how many times we can use the lavatories..." or what but DAMN did those toilets get some use. Was unreal... seriously like every two minutes for about an hour (that should have been 40 by the way!). To make herself a true local Karen decided to join in the "festivities" of using the urinal... though did so for other purposes....to vomit! She had struggled for long enough on the train with the windy track and hot stuffy smelly mid-carriage. The night before it would seem was a little "too good"!!

The next Saturday provided me the first time since leaving New Zealand that I have "gone bush" heading up to the summit of a local "mountain" (Japanese say mountain...I say hill....). I went up with Tan and Jamie and was astonished to see just how similar the Japanese bush is to NZ. The walk itself was beautiful and well worth the trip. The views from top were beautiful and the whole hike really recharged my batteries. So good. Unfortunately no sign of any nasties to report on... one day I will see a wild snake I'm sure of it!

The next day we headed to Hiroshima on a bus tour with a bunch of oldies. There were six of us and a bus of them... Was so funny cruising up on the bus and having the lady who provided a wealth of knowledge and information totally mind blown that she had 5 foreigners sitting on her bus!! She honestly was talking to the people on the bus for about 25 minutes and kept on laughing so hard at different stuff. The tour itself was pretty cool once we arrived (5hours + to get there!). We had a lunch... I wont say nice... but it was lunch... (cold vinegar drenched whole fish). Then we went to an island that has a huge shrine and this massive red gate thing that sits in sand and at high tide actually gets covered in water. After the shrine we went to a very famous Japanese rainbow bridge (huge arcs). Although having said that I don't have a clue what its called... but im sure amongst the Japanese people everyone knows it.

The Monday that followed I had off and so I, Karen and Rumi headed to Sasebo to go to the zoo. What a great idea that was!! We got to hold a snake, see huge vultures (god they're scary!... and apparently wild in Japan. Brilliant), there was also a massive old tortoise. He was such a nice fella. Really wanted to take him home but had a feeling they would spot him under my jumper (plus im sure I wouldn't be able to lift him!).

Now I get to something more recent and im sure many of you have been waiting for a while to hear the outcome of... my singing.

Wednesday Lisa and I rocked up to the school for a practice with the band. We arrived at the building they practice in and slowly made our way up the stairs with the music growing louder with each inch our bodies rose... Finally we were on the same floor and then I opened the door and nearly died when I realise this was actually gonna happen... and, yes, they had a large brass band! Excellent. We sang through 'hey jude' twice and afterwards were told to maybe practice just a little... yeah right! I swear one boy started coughing during our singing to hide his laughter... the boys at the back just didn't care and laughed outright... oh the shame we brought to the band.

So Saturday finally came around, no avoiding it really, and, with it, it brought the warm up event for hey jude. Tan, Maurice, and I had been asked, and again thanks to my stupidity we agreed to sing in a karaoke competition being held in Tans town. I got to choose the song, and I think I did well selecting YMCA. We didn't have a single practice and I only got us some costumes at the last minute but I think we did very well. Sure we had to stop the song half way through and start again but that wasn't our fault I tell you it was the organisers!! As soon as the music started and we looked at the screen for the words we were greeted with Hiragana and katakana!! Nice... cause we can all read those at the same speed as its sung... NOT! Finally they came on stage and stopped it and gave us the English words. The winning move was having sweets in bum bags and throwing them to the kids when the song was really lacking and sparking some new interest. While we didn't win I thought we did very well, unlucky in fact not to have been placed, at least till I head the video of it and then I understood how bad we really were.

The next morning was the big event. The moment I had been dreading ever since I had let those words "yeah sure ill do it" spill from my lips... Upon arrival we were met outside by the brass band in full practice and it scared the hell out of me! Once we went inside and then out to the quad I was scared once again when I saw where we would be playing and just how many students would be able to see and hear... A number of my friends were in attendance to watch Lisa and I make a total arse of ourselves... thanks guys.

Now I think the biggest mistake, as it always is, was being a little too confident. When the first teacher went out and did his thing we all said... "hey this guy sucks... well be sweet in comparison!! No sweat... look he even has the words written down!" Now what we should have been doing at this stage was more practice...

When our moment came we walked out picked up the mike and I instantly said to the students "gomen nasai" (sorry). The conductor counted us in and we broke into song (hmm ok I use the word song here very loosely). Straight away I knew we were fu*ked. We sucked and there was nothing we could do about it... however, bigger panic stepped in one we had sung a couple of lines and sung them so fast we had completely left the band behind!... this in turn set me into a slight spell of giggles as I tried to regain composure whilst simultaneously pull the tinsel hair out of my mouth, and sing the next line. The song just didn't get any better.. it went from weakness to weakness... during the song I remember thinking... "hmm Japan sure is providing me a number of low points... this is worse than sleeping in a subway station..." and looking out to see the students had turned their backs to us preferring to pretend we weren't there and then I looked to my left and saw Karen cracking up at me and I had to laugh once again at the ridiculousness of the situation... god it must have been funny for them to watch. Now I was wearing the same costume as the YMCA the night before thinking that the more crazy I look the less people will take me seriously. The costume contained the bum bag which after the night before I had decided to go with again. I had put a good couple of bags of sweets in it and was sure it would be the saving grace again. Mid song, though, and I knew I was screwed... not even candy could save me!! But I was left in a dilemma, if I didn't throw it out people would just think I wore bum bags for no other reason than thinking they are cool... I had to throw the sweets to show why I wore it.. I can't believe that within the space of two minutes I could go from one all time low to another... but I did!! I swear this time I was throwing sweets out to NO ONE.... they were literally falling on the grass and no one was moving for them!... whilst singing hey jude to a school full of kids pretending not to hear me was a low point of my life... it was a shocker... I am telling you all of this without even seeing Rumi's video of the whole affair... it can only get worse I tell you.

The two saving graces from the school festival day though were the Hot air balloon we got to have a little ride in and seeing the design students' artwork. Simply amazing how good they are.

Now for those who have read this far I applaud you and thank you. I will endeavour to write more often so I don't have to write so much. I will try to make reading my site a pleasure not a chore.

Next on the list of things to do is a little trip we have to a fairly unknown city up north called TOKYO!! Yeah!! We leave tomorrow morning for 5 days there. We're going to be there for Karen's birthday on the Saturday so should have plenty more stories like those from the Fukuoka night to report back on... I'm looking forward to CK coming out again! Until then, Ja ne!