I booked this wednesday off work to go to Hakone. Its a place in the mountains with hotsprings and freshwater lakes. and apperntly stunning views of mt. fuji. So im going with Kanae. It should be really relaxing. Im realizing that im becomeing an old japanese man. I enjoy Kabuki and hot springs and i only every see old me there. oh well.


anyway here are some photos from halloween. I was a japanese radish. I plan to goskiing in Nagano for the winter break wearing that costume. it was a little embarrassing. lots of japanese people were touching my fatness. but i guess i was asking for it by wearing a skin tight costume. my costume won second prize (it was a coffee maker) i lost to cpt. Jack sparrow. real original.

im trying to save money and the best method i could come up with was buying a bottle of jonny walker and sit at home drinking it. i have 24 also. and my new new room mate is here. With this new new guy i have come to grips with an element of myself. the part of me that can not tollerate liveing with other people. I liked it before when i was expierencing Kanashibari. sure ghosts are creepy but they stay out of the way in the daylight hours. and they dont eat all my food. nor do they use my computer in my room while im out at work. honestly i dont know which is more creepy.

Now i wasent posting for a while because i know some people around here read my blog. and i didnt like the idea of them reading. but i dont think it matters so i will just come right out and offend everyone. so if you live in shizuoka or you work for NOVA and you read this but you dont tell me that you do I think you're a perv. of course i dont mean you Daniel. get well soon.

mike.

im going to work now its 8:30 in the morning. there is a cold breeze outside but my heater is on inside. my tatami room windows are full of fog.
Yesterday at the bath house was great. I tried a bath that was like a giant teacup. I sat soaking with a humungous teabag. it was cool.
Today is my monday so im not very happy at the idea of goinginto work, but i better get going.

Im sitting in a hotspring right now, cooling form a 30 minute soak in spring water. Im trying to get the japanese on this keyboard to type so i can prove that im here. when kanae get out of the womans bath i will see if she can help me> but im starting to think i will head back to the onsen rooms> as you may or may not know japanese bath houses are a naked affair which im am growing to me very comfortable with. yes i enjoy sitting in large tubs with naked japanese men. this bathhouse is in the city so its much bussier than ones i have been to in the country side. theres nothing liek it at home. A public bath house seems very anchient world. like plato should jump out of one of the tubs. anyway we are here all day so i might post again later.

Im back

alot has happened since my last post. I've visited home and returned to japan. I guess i should start at the beginning of my vacation. Kanae and I went to Tokyo for the day before my flight to Toronto. We went to the dolphin show in Shin agawa. but it was so busy that we had to watch from the underwater window. later we visited Robo robo Koen, this little park with like a hundred robots. It was awsome! I'll post pics once I sort out flickr again. My month of inactivity has erased all my auto-complete passwords and usernames so im a little lost at the moment in terms of posting pics. The most fun thing in tokyo this last trip was Disney sea. I turely felt like a kid. Ive never been to a proper theme park before.

Canada was a really relaxing time. The air is so much fresher there. Stirlings wedding was great ! I only wish i could have stayed longer. my wedding present from japan was Takoyakior octopus balls. people wernt so impressed by the idea. but it was cool to hagle for octopus in windsor. My students here always find that funny. It was even more funny listening to Corwin invite the brides maids to the hotel with the promis of all the octopus they can eat. It was a littel awkward but whatever. hey Corwin if you read this those cowboy bebop cds require some downloadable patch or somthing, i'll email you. Aurora was nice. It was so nice to see my family. Susanna is talking so much and was into everything. We went to the first anual aurora ribfest but it didnt amount to much. I was so happy to see everyone i could and im really sory i had to miss seeing some people.

Now that Im back Im feeling much better than before. I think I had these huge expectations when i first came to japan and i just spent a year being let down but now i know what its all about and am haveing a good time again.

just in the last few weeks since being back I've gone back to work, went swiming in the ocean and got stung by a jelly fish, and had a case of sleep paralysis, it was really interesting. but i'll post about that some othertime.

Some of the people that come and teach here are trying to escape from relationships or other problems at home. Others are here to detox from various drug habits. I fall into the post-university “finding myself” category. I think at home I was a fairly accepting person. I hope Japan has pushed me to racism and its not the person that I “found” on this experience of self discovery. It might be japan because of the strong feeling that I don’t belong here that is imposed on foreigners. I can’t fucking take the staring anymore. Everyday I’m watched like an animal. On the train they look out of the corners of their eyes. They try to hide it but the fucking weasels cant help themselves. Or I’ll go into a yakitori restaurant and be greeted by every local nudging their friends to look at the Gaijin that just walked in. This has boiled over today because I tried to buy boots on my way home. It was a painfully simple metaphor for my situation. I said I’m size 12 American and they said its impossible. That size of boot doesn’t exist in Japan. The clerk said it and I didn’t care about the damn boot but it was just clear that I don’t belong here. He said it with the typical smile. Maybe its an attempt at being polite. But I can see in his face the thought: “you’re a crazy foreigner for even considering that we have your size.”

I just got a new American roommate. He is alright except for his general crassness. The first night I had to listen to him talk about the women he’s had sex with (includeing a story with a prostitute). His tales of sexual exploits were like trophies of achievement being waved in my face. But I’m being too harsh. He is a nice guy. He is very liberal which makes up for any disgusting stories he decides to tell me.

Lately I’ve been sick with stress. The heat and humidity are pushing my physical tolerance to their limits. I have 4 or 5 knots in my neck. My stomach is like battery acid. I have to decide about what I’m doing here and I‘m dieing because of it. Some of these characters here remind me that I should have nothing to be stressed about. Or they tell me they all feel that way all the time and I should just take it. But that’s not very helpful. I’ve been afraid to write about it because I know that everyone at home especially my family will tell me to come back to Canada. I think I probably should go home but I fell like I would just find other kinds of stress. Little things are becoming huge decisions. I thought I would visit home in September and then decide how long I can go in Japan. But if I decide to go home for good in October coming back seems like a big waste. I can’t stop thinking about all the possibilities and I can’t relax because of it. But I feel better just writing it into the blog. Please write back.