Merry Christmas Crackers

Merry Christmas To Everyone

Hey Nick, what's Christmas like in Japan? Are there Christmas lights? Santa Claus'? Are there any gifts are little elves running around giving out free blowies?


Thank you for asking!

There are not any elves running around giving out free blowies (I've looked desperately).
There are some Christmas lights. Bigger cities like Kobe, Osaka, and Tokyo have some light displays. But much like Halloween Christmas is just a novelty. It isn't celebrated in the same fashion as the states, ex. Christianity beliefs, Jesus, Mary and Joseph's argument with that Angel.. non-existent.

In fact, Christmas is on par with Valentines day. It's a couples day, if you have a boyfriend or girlfriend you're supposed to spend it with them. So you can imagine that I'll be spending it with a full night of Spank Wire.

Sorry for not rotating the picture, you can tell my laziness is really kicking in.

This is a giant Santa/Bush thingie outside of a mall in Kobe. Just an example of the kind of illuminations they got going on in Japan.
Romantic..

Since it is the season, it's time for Christmas lessons in school. I'm letting kids make Christmas cards. Simple things really.

Draw a Christmas Tree

Write a message. Ex: "Merry Christmas, Happy New Year."

This is what I got from one of my students at my Technical school.


Classic! Gotta love the attention to them titties!

Jesus Christ listen to me....

Anyway.

I hope everyone that still looks at this blog has a very nice holiday.
I'll be getting back to all of you after the new year.
Expect some sort of new layout and big update after the New Year.

Godspeed.

Japan 7 - Nick 8

Last weekend, I lost at strip "Jankin"... but I won ;)

Tie

Food

I've been wanting to post this for over a week.
Jesus I'm getting fucking lazy with this blog, I'm almost as bad as that terrible "Itadakimasu," horse shit of a blog.

Anyway, last week was Thanksgiving so I thought I would do a small blog about FOOD.

What's more American then a McDonalds?!
Raised trucks - er.. Maybe
Bigotry - hmmm
Celebrity Sex Tapes - Okay you got me there..

Anyway, McDonalds was serving up there Japo famous Tsukimi burger

The Tsukimi burger = Burger, Bun, thousand island dressing, bacon and of course, EGG.

HMMM so delicious!!
In all honesty it wasn't that good, it tasted just like a McMuffin, but without the disgusting. It was Okay. I can't explain why the Mcdonalds (Pronounced: Mac-uh-Mick-Dough-no-doe) in Japan tastes so much better then Amercicas. Maybe it's because the workers in Japan aren't some borderline suicidle, disgruntled, derelict.

The Tsukimi burger was a fucking let down... but Japan always redeems itself some how...

WITH A FUCKING BLAST FROM THE PAST!


WWWAAHHHHHHH
I haven't had these since I was in elementary school.
They're still good.

Hope you guys had a nice holiday.. except amit.
Oh, and in case you're wondering how I celebrated my Thanksgiving, it was with tofu and pizza.
wow

Time Out (20 Second)

Halloween Revisited

This is probably the best picture of my trip you will see.

I'm dressed as a horse with a suit on dancing with some chick on a stage.

A few things to take from this picture:

- I can't see a thing. I had no idea who I was dancing with. I knew it was a girl from using my hands, but I never got a glimpse of her face. I had to ask my friends if she was hot or not. How embarrassing. She asked me to take the mask off... I told her "HERRRHHHAAAHHAA," (that was suppsosed to be a horse voice). I answered everyones questions in horse noises.I never took off the mask.

This is the first time I saw what that girl looked like.

- There's a sing on the side of the wall: "Ladies Only On The Stage." Well sir, I'm a horse.

- Michael Jackson was a very popular costume this year, as I'm sure it was back in the states. I'm not sure if that MJ was either a man or a woman. Which I guess means it was an authentic costume.

- The most annoying part of the night: Countless British and Australian men asking me, " Aye dare mate, you're a horse. A HORSE! Butttt zzzer real question is... Are you hung , are you hung like a horse!1!"

Awful, everyone is piss drunk so they fucking say the same thing to you 3 times a night.

- There's a drink in my hand. It's water.

I hope everyone has a nice thanksgiving!

- oh, except for you Amit Patel. I hope your Thanksgiving sucks, thanks for the land.

Time Out (20 second)

KOBE!


Thought I would give you guys a little update before I head out onto the weekend.

I went ahead and took my first paid vacation day, and I'm headed to Kobe in about 30 minutes.
I'm gana try some of that world famous Kobe beef (like a burger not the curtains), and look at some other attractions.


What else... I found out that Iwasaki Sensei really likes Orlando Bloom.
That's GREAT!
Now I have something to model myself after. All I have to do is lose about 90 lbs, have ugly facial hair and grow a vagina.


One my other teachers who is interested in English appraoches me with Mariah Carey lyrics.
What does it mean to be "All up in the..."
Er this is hard to explain, when did Mariah get so Ghetto?



This has been the first time since I left America where I actually really wanted to play a video game. Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 just came out and it's broken all kinds of records. Highest entertainment launch in history! Including books, and movies alike, that's insane. Makes me wonder two things... how far video games have come as a median of entertainment... and how fucking lazy are we?




Alright that's about it really... I'm headed to Kobe here in about 20 minutes.

Sorry for the lack of updates. As some of you may know, I'm preparing for grad school, so I've been spending a lot of time in front of the computer writing up letters of intent and doing a ton of a research. So anytime I don't need to be in front of the computer, you can bet I'm not. I'm out hitting convenient stores like any other Japanese in this country.

ONE MORE THING.

I started to watch the show 24... bad idea..


Okay really this is the last thing: My ass is doing fine, thank you to everyone who wrote letters of encouragement, I'll be fine! Thanks for looking out for my ass..


WATCH BLACK DYNAMITE!

Black Dynamite Redband Trailer
Uploaded by viciouspanda. - Full seasons and entire episodes online.

Japan 7 - Nick 7

To The Hospital

I won't say exactly what it was that forced me to go to the Doctor's office, just know that it's nothing serious. Ladies, don't worry it's nothing serious.

But here it goes:

I contacted my Doctor in the states and told him my situation and he told me it was time to go to see a Doctor in Japan.

God damn, remember how I've been saying my town is nothing but old people. The hospital was fucking PACKED! There were old people every where laying around, some were missing limbs, it was wild. I had to be the youngest person in there by 40 years.

My teacher came with me and helped translate with the Dr. Then it was the moment of truth. My teacher stepped out of the room and the Dr made me get on a table, get on my forearms and my knees and bend over... If you're having a hard time imagining this, here's a picture I drew.

This was one of the most embarrassing moments of my whole fucking life.

The first thing I did when bent over with my pants pulled down was apologize to every girlfriend I've ever had. This is the most uncomfortable position in the world. I couldn't fucking relax, I was so tense. I kept flexing my butt cheeks!

There are no ROOMS! The only thing between me and the waiting room was a fucking curtain. Nurses and patients were walking by and having a nice giggle. Absolutely no privacy.

Then the Dr asks my teacher to come and in and translate some. Holy God, now my teacher sees me bent over with my ass hanging upright in the air like some whore. It was awful, I couldn't make eye contact with anyone, I just put my face in my forearms and waited for the whole ordeal to be over with.

Once it was over, I've never felt so violated in my life. I didn't want to sit down. I stood the rest of the time.

The best part of the visit though.. was it was completely free. The Dr. never took my insurance or anything. Apparently he houses some exchange students from time to time, and he feels sympathy for foreigners in this country. So he gave me some antibiotics and some steroids for free. Fucking sweet. I'm juicin.

Like I said Ladies, don't worry about me. I'll be good. Just give me a week or so to get back on my feet. Oh lord, who the hell am I kidding? Ladies didn't want me before, why the hell would they want me now that I have some bandage hanging from my ass...



God how has this trip come to this.

Japan 7 - Nick 8

Breaking and Entering

I found a new hobby of some sort...

All throughout my region are abandoned houses.

Why is that?

Well you see, there are nothing but old, half-crippled, fruit pickin' grandmas living around me. Their children go away to larger cities like Tokyo, or Osaka. Once the parents die, the kids may come down for funeral, but that's about it. The leave the house as is. They just board up the windows, and lock the doors. There is still a bunch of stuff inside the homes... as you'll see!


Random boxes filled with clothes moslty.

This is the kitchen. They still had bottles of sake laying around.

Tools.

Man these scared me a little bit. Two human sized wooden crates. Fuck man, they coulda been coffins! Had to take a look inside and I found this!!...

.
....






AAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!

Just kidding.. there was nothing but old blankets in those coffins...

but this is real...


I fucking stepped on a petrified cat. Who knows how long that thing has been dead. It was like kicking dry leaves. Sweet Jesus!

Halloween Special

Do The Japoknees Celebrate Halloween?

Yep

A lot of people have been asking me this so I thought I would take a minute and talk about my Halloween experience.

The Japanese have a unique way of celebrating Halloween.
Almost all cafes have some sort of Halloween decor, because it's "Cute." Anything that is cute in this country is put on a pedestal, but that's a different story.

The cafes have the normal stuff that we'd see in America. Jack-o-lanterns made of plastic, witches, ghosts. In essence, cafes look like elementary school classrooms.

There are a few costume parties for children, and the kids know the term "trick or treat," but don't be fooled, there is absolutely NO trick or treating. The Japanese basically do everything with Halloween except celebrate it.

What Did I do For Halloween?

I went to Osaka to visit my old friend Jason and attend a few clubs and costume parties.
Jason went as Ned Flanders.



We got to the club and we were an instant hit.

The biggest problem with my costume was that I couldn't fucking see! I was dancing with all these girls and had no idea who they were. I had to use my hands as my eyes. Most of them felt really hot. So I had to ask Jason, "Please tell me she was hot."
All the girls wanted to know who I was. "Take off your mask!" "Are you Japanese?"
Do I effin dance like I'm Japanese!? (Oh btw! The only people to dance worse then white men, or Japanese people).
I eventually took my costume to the bridge in Osaka and posted for a while. Japanese would come up with their camera and take a picture with me. Everyone said "thank you," how did they know I was white?!

Anyway, my Halloween was a lot of fun. I almost passed out twice because of how hot it gets in that fucking mask. The ladies were (felt) beautiful, and the times were good, real good.



Oh yah.. Here's my costume.

Ride it baby, ride it

Time Out (20 second)

Happy Halloween!


I wonder which apartment the honkie lives in.... hmm..

Japan 7 - Nick 7

My Bitter Sweet Brown Belt

That's a picture of me and my Sensei in my closet like dojo.

Like the title says, it was a bitter sweet experience. Let me start with the sweet.

Sweet:
The Budokan was effing packed! There must've been a hundred or more people packed in there to kick some ass, or watch some ass being kicked.

My test was split into two separate parts.
1. Kata (Showmans skills test)
2. Fight

During the beginning of the Kata I recognized two of my students. They came over and bowed to me. That was nice, HARK! What was that!? They have white belts! Oh man, one of these two students could be my opponent!

Anyway, Pyar (another Gaijin stacking up to 6'6 and 230 lbs) got together and passed our Kata together. Good times.

Here's a video of the Kata. The three moves at the 1 minute mark are the moves I had to do to pass.


Next was lunch.. I ate a little bit of rice and fish.

During lunch, the scrolls were put up. Each scroll had the names of the fighters. I can't read... =(


After lunch everyone gathers around the scrolls and the judges read of the names (you are to raise your hand accordingly).
"Nick Oh LAs Giunta,"
HAI!!
"Japo Name"
Hai!!

That was when I first saw my opponent...


A lot of things go through your mind when you see the man you'll be fighting for the luxurious brown belt.
Has he truly loved?
Does he have a family?
I wonder if we'd be friends?...
I wonder what his favorite cartoon is?..
and..
I wonder what Jr High he goes to...

The Bitter Part : My opponent was only 14 yrs old.

That's right!

I had to fight a God damned 14 yr old for my brown belt.

Dude when we got to the ring I was thinking, "Alright I'm just going to take it easy on this kid, he's only 14 and his parents are here to watch him. I couldn't imagine playing one-on-one basketball with a 25 yr old when I was 14.."

The fight started and I swear that kid was possessed. He was fighting for dear life. It was as if I were trying to steal all his cartoon pornography.

After about 30 seconds the fight went to the ground and I eventually pinned him for 3o seconds, match over.

My second match, against another 14 yr old only lasted 10 seconds. I threw him, game over.

After all the fights were finished it was free for all time. Anyone who wanted to fight anyone could come and challenge, and let me tell you.. there were a line of black belts lining up to take out the white man. I got my damn ass handed to me. I was so fucking exhausted. The little kid from the first fight came and challenged me again, I think his Sensei made him do it. I told him and his teacher he was very strong and not to be upset about anything. I bowed and tried to show great respect, but honestly as the whiteman in Japan there's only so much respect you can show without looking like an ass.

So there you have it.
I have a brown belt.
How did I get it?
Kicking the crap out of a 14 yr old.

Time Out (20 second)

The Biggest Test Of My Life



That's right kid-o's. I have my brown belt test in judo tomorrow.
How do I obtain this brown belt? Easy. I just have to defeat the 3 Japos put in front of me.
The idea of putting my hands on a complete stranger and attempting to throw them to the ground and hold them there is odd to me, for a couple reasons.
The main one being that I'm used to a sport that I was somewhat decent at.
I was confident in my ability to play basketball so I had no problem of playing against anyone. But in judo, I've been practicing for 2 months. I'm awful. As bad as it gets. So not only am I scared about getting thrown, but I'm also scared about throwing someone. What If I throw them and they land on their fucking head and bleed to death?!
Basketball is a sport in which physical contact is frowned upon. It's pretty damn pussy. Almost as pussy as soccer.


Everyone please wish me good luck. If I win, I'm a brown belt, if I lose I bring shame to the Dojo.

OH!! And I almost forgot. The people I will be competing against... high school students. Which means, there's a good chance I will have to fight my students. And If they beat me, do you know how embarrassing that will be!? How would you feel if you beat your high school teacher in physical combat? Holy god, I'd ask for nothing less then a B+ or I'd kick your ass, like I did in the competition! fuck

Japan 7 - Nick 6

Poetic Justice


Every morning I take a train and bus to get to my school, it takes roughly 45 minutes to get there. At the final stretch of my morning journey I have to walk about 200 yards to the campus surrounded by students. At the gate of the campus is the principal. And he is there every morning to great every child that walks through the gate... and me.

Here's an Illustration:


I think this is really neat. I don't think there are many schools in America that have their principal stand outside and great the children. Later one day I find myself in the coffee room with the principal and one of my English teachers.

"Hey could you please tell the Principal in Japanese that I think it's really cool he stands outside and greats me in English every morning.."

"He says you look very tired.."

"Ah, ya it's pretty early, sorry about that."

"He says the sky is very blue and beautiful, and in contrast you are very gray and look sad to be coming to work.."

"Oh... wow.. err.. I dunno.. what to say.."

Damn! Talk about dropping some Japanese poetic justice all over me! I'm just glad he didn't start whipping out Haiku's to put me in my place. Maybe I should start looking a little happier to be coming to school... I dunno if that's going to happen since my nickname in one class is vagina. Sort of, I don't really feel like talking about that right now.

Japan 7 - Nick 7

Tokyo Game Show


Yes I went to Tokyo Game Show. I know know... I'm a giant nerd for paying 300 $ to fly to Tokyo to play the newest video games, some of which aren't released yet. PLUS, I'm staying with the girl from West Virginia and you know things are bound to get fresh... right?

I get to the show and I see a bunch of confiscated toys from people trying to cosplay.


A: Why the fuck are you bringing an iron to the show? Planning on ironing your cape?
B: Scissors? And there's a lot of them!
C: Who thought it would be safe to bring a fake gun to a public event? In Amerrrca, I think you would be arrested for something like this.

Speaking of Cosplay, here's a picture:


For those that don't know what cosplay is, It's when people dress up as their favorite anime or video game character. As you can see by this photo, a group of Japos decided to dress up as the cast of Zelda.... and one Yoshi.. who was smoking hot.

But the highlight of the trip. Who did I run into?! You might know her as Morgan Webb.


OMG! She's actually a lot cuter then I thought she would be. I was looking for Olivia Munn.. but I got Morgan, and that's okay. I didn't get the chance to speak with her since she was surrounded by a fortress of dorks.

After the game show

Okay time to hang out with the girl from West Virginia, things are bout to sweet as chicken pie.
Wrong.
Instead they got as gay as chicken ass hole getting fucked by another man chicken.

All of her friends (males) once they got drunk they started kissing each other, touching one another, and telling the gayest stories I've ever heard. Something about playing DDR naked with the heater turned all the way up. What the fuck?

So I just went to sleep, then the next morning flew back to my country side, where the males are normal, and want to touch chicks. And play DDR with our clothes on.

Japan 7 - Nick 6

I'm Alive (Partially)

So I should've updated everyone on this days ago.
The typhoon came and went, and was hardly a big deal. Well, I shouldn't say that, someone did die.
I felt like a bit of an ass telling all my teachers how excited I was to go through a typhoon, then someone dies..... Well It turned out the typhoon was strong enough to knock down a tree in the path of someone on a motorcycle.
My school was canceled for only half the day. I had to go in around 1:00 pm and teach a class, but it wasn't so bad.

In other news:

I went on a hike over the weekend. The longest fucking hike of my life stretching 50 kilometers. Fucking God, never again. I've never climbed up and over so many hills/mountains in my life. My knees are aching.

I have my brown belt test for Judo in about 2 weeks in which I will be pinned up against another white belt'er (probably a high school student) and winner gets the brown belt. I don't have the killer instinct to fight dude. Seriously, I just do judo for fun, and now they want me to pummel some 16 yr old get into submission.

err...

There's a Baskin Robins out here. They have Halloween flavors and Halloween cups that are quite festive. I order a 4 dollar scoop of "Pumpkin Pudding," they give it to me in a normal 31 flavors cup and pink spoon. The next Japo in line orders ice cream and he gets the cool the Halloween cup and bright orange spoon. Fucking racist. The Japanese don't even celebrate Halloween! At least give it to the guy who's trick-or-treated once in his life time.

As far as my bowel movements are concerned (cause I know you're all concerned). I started drinking small cans of Boss Coffee. And that really gets things moving. And messy I might add. Who's the spokesman for Boss?


Kind of perfect if you ask me.

Sorry for the lame ass post. I will post something a little more fruitful, maybe tomorrow... or Friday.

On a completely separate note, Congratulations to Ryan and Jenny on getting married!

Time Out (20 second)

I feel a typhoon uh comin'

That's right. A typhoon should be reaching Japan early Thursday morning. Schools have already been shutting down, and my train just notified everyone today that it would not be running until tomorrow night. This means it's going to be impossible for me to get to my school unless someone drives through the typhoon to come get me. I really hope that doesn't happen.

In honor of the school canceling typhoon I had myself a nice little dinner. Walked to the grocery store in the pouring rain and bought food for tonight and tomorrow (thinking I'll be stuck inside). Tonight is quite the occasion so I treated myself to spaghetti and Coca-cola! Delicious!




If school is canceled tomorrow, which it very well should be, you can count on me staying inside all day, eating rice, and trying to watch all of the Tree House of Horrors.



CHEERS!

Japan 7 - Nick 5

The Great Outdoors

We had a small holiday, about 5 days off in a row so a few friends I decided to go camping.

Under-prepared but willing, my style. We went to a place called 48 waterfalls, but instead of staying in a hotel like a normal person we decided to walk up the mountain side and find a nice flat place to throw up a tent. Well we eventually found a place good enough for a tent, and we also found some foot prints. More like tracks. We think they were wild boar tracks, fuck it. We set up tent then I tried to make a fire out of sticks and stones. Once that didn't work we made Tyler make a small hike back into town and get a lighter.

Fire!!!

Oh that outlined person is Todd. He's black, and a little harder to see in the darkness.

We had the fire running till about 11:30, then we decided to call it a night. Around 1 in the morning a loud SCREEECH woke us up.

"Did you guys hear that...?"
"Yeah"
"Yeah"
"What the fuck..."


haha, I have a small video of us talking to each other in the tent, but the audio is very low and you never get to hear the animal so I'll spare you the 20 seconds of boredom and confusion.
The animal (which we think was a monkey) tiptoed around out tent for about a minute or so then took off into the forest.

Around 4 in the morning the animal came back and started to make more noise. I grabbed my camera and started taking flash pictures into hillside. What I found was shocking!

Well not really , but that's an eye! I took several pictures and that object never moved. Fucker was spying on us!

When we finally woke up and got everything going, we enjoyed a nice breakfast and started out hike. The 48 waterfalls was a very nice place.


After the waterfalls we got onto a rode and actually hitch hiked back to the train station. I'd never in my life hitch hike in America. That shit is nuts, you'd get a butt hole full broomstick or mouth full of dead, no thanks. But in JAPAN! They were very nice, even gave us some souvenirs and wished us good luck. haha.

So what do I like to do after a hard camping/hiking trip?
Well sir, I like to sit down at my favorite McDonald's and listen to a honkey from Atlanta Georgia play the piano, of course. Cause McDonald's in Japan have grand pianos...



And if you're wondering why I lost a point it's because of our reaction to the animal that came around the tent. Honestly if you would've heard us, you'd laugh, or mistaken us for girls, that are 8 yrs old, that suffer from night terrors.

Japan 7 - Nick 6

I'll let the video do the talking




Thank you for the wonderful meal, I had a splendid evening.

<3
NG

Summer Stories

End of Summer

So summer is coming to an end and I had one more visitor..
The girl from West Virginia! She stayed for about 4 nights.


It was good to have a friend come and stay a while. Friend with a giant penis.

A few highlights of the stay.

We went into the mountains to watch the only black man in southern Japan salsa dance..




The salsa dancing was good and all, but the biggest surprise was.. you guessed it.. THE TOILET!




There was no handle to flush! You had to take that weird spray nozel thing and literally spray your shit or piss down the toilet. At first I didnt know what it was.. a bidet maybe? "Am I suppose to hose my ass with this thing?"

A lot of people have been askign me:


"dude, she stayed at your place for four nights, please tell me you got some."
"Man, a girl at your place for that long, i hope you charged her rent, some PPUSSSSEEEHHH!!"


Well the truth is, after watching that Japo porn given to me from my basketball friend, Ive turned asexual.
I couldn't get a boner if Amit sucked my dick.
Either way, it didnt really matter...

Ya see, me and the girl from West Virginia, went to a photo booth together, and thats where it all... err.. unraveled..

Jason

Jason Story #1 !!! OMGZ


"Does Jason know that is BAD?! "
- Sugino San

"Tanabe had it coming..."
- Disgruntled Interac Employee Emily Towe

"I got arrested."
- Jasons text sent to me at 4 am.



K there's not a whole to say about this.

One could say Jason has been going slowly crazy down here in the country side...


Long story short:

Jason and all of white friends went out drinking one night..

She didn't take her shirt off..

After the absolute slaughtering of Paranoid Android by Radiohead at a Karoake bar I went home. Fell asleep.

Didn't wake up till the next morning when I had a text from Jason..
"Got arrested"

Holy shit. Started to call people etc to see what happened..

Jason was confronted by 11 police officers at a grocery store parking lot.

I was later informed by Jason that in Canada, when one gets drunk, it's a lot of fun to jump on moving cars and pretend you got hit by them...Well the Japoknees didn't think that was too funny three cars later..

Jason actually did not get arrested but was slapped with a $500 fine. He's lucky that the people didn't want to press charges, they only wanted him to pay for the damages. And only 2 of the 3 people actually wanted him to pay, the third claimed he didn't do any damage. Wow, the Japanese are honest people.

Well without further adieu...

Thank you Emily very much for this photo!! LOLLL
I can't imagine what the poor Japanese inside were thinking!


Jason,

You were only with us for a short time, and God took you from us. We know he has plans for you. Better plans. You'll be happier where you're going. I look forward to our next meeting.
In our thoughts and hearts forever.