Klondike derby, the redux

When we were kids, we had to go camping during the winter in boy scouts.  Sure, it was freezing as shit and you couldn’t sleep worth a damn in the icy bags, but at least you knew at the worst you’d be home in 2 days.

Well, here I am in godforsaken mountains, where the temperature in my room drops to 15 degrees Fahrenheit at night.  I woke up not being able to feel my toes last night, so I sat up and realized the blanket designed-for-5-foot-6-Japanese-people had moved off my feet.  So I was adjusting it and starting to lie back down when I felt my cheek hit a block of ice.  Seriously, the memory foam pillow had turned ice cold in under 15 seconds, and consequently I am now afraid to rest on my pillow at night.

Also, in the morning I can see my breath, it takes 35 minutes to heat a small bath, and washing my hands/teeth before putting contacts in is a serious frostbite risk. 

Where does Santa Claus live?

Students were trying to fill out a worksheet with the sentence “Santa Claus and his reindeer live in the (north / south / west / east) pole.”

I was trying to explain that Santa lived up north without saying north, and after a few different sentences, this is the conclusion the kids arrived upon: “Hokkaido!  Santa is in Hokkaido!”

 Also on this worksheet, I gave them a word bank with the header “Word Bank:”.

One girl used “word bank” as the answer in one of her sentences.

Trippin’

Yeah, everyone here runs everywhere.  And because they’re wearing sandals, they trip a lot.  I’ve never seen so many grown people running and tripping over things in my life.  And they do take some pretty hard landings sometimes, too.

I think you have to be drunk in order to enjoy karaoke

Said after a somewhat sober evening of karaoke.  I think this speaks volumes about karaoke’s limited appeal, by the way.

Also, the reason for the sobriety was because of Japan’s weird zoning laws that only allow 1 convenience store within a certain radius to sell alcohol.  After walking around for 15 minutes and trying 3 different 7-11/Lawsons, we gave up.  Who ever heard of a 7-11 without beer?

Multi-Facial

What race in Vin Diesel?  Honestly, I’m confused.  Which is why I’m pleased he put together this wonderful film to explain it all.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0226168/

Regarding public places

“My temple is in a very pubic place.”

Heh, kids say the darndest things.

Do not speak Japanese, it will only lower your value in their eyes

Fact: Speaking anything more than simple phrases found on page one in any Japanese textbook will not endear you to anyone.  Stick plainly to classics like otsukaresama deshita, oyasuminasai, and shitsuree shimasu.  Japanese people do not want to hear your attempts to strengthen your Japanese ability, only your hilarious misuses of common words.

Evidence of non-fascist behavior in Japan

The bed that I found in the closet 3 months ago and finally decided to put together fits neither my mattress nor any of the futons also found in my closet.  This would never happen in a real fascist country, where the trains always run on the dot and no one is allowed to express opinions in open dialogue, like Japan.

English-learning textbook inspired band names, part 1:

Hang in there Bob and the Make that a Promises.

On an unrelated note, my JTE prefaces every sentence of hers with “To be honest.”  I get a lot of honesty over the course of a day.

Little kids just got less awful in my mind

I was walking home yesterday and a little elementary school kid came up and said “Hello” to me.  So I repeated it back to him, and asked him how he was.  He parroted the “How are you?” back to me, and I said “I’m fine, how are you?”  And he played his little game and said “I’m fine how are you!” before running off cackling to his friends.

And a moment later I realized that he had actually been speaking with an almost perfect English accent while mimicking my words.  This little kid could do what hundreds of worthless high school students utterly cannot: speak without the damn accent in even the simplest of circumstances.  And it gives me hope.