Happy Holidays/New Year!

This is New Years themed. I’m working on sending this post back in time so that you may read it as it was meant to be read… in early January. I’ll let you know how that goes.


I had a lovely winter holiday this year. I spent it with people I am enormously fond of, both in Japan and in Canada. I was SO SO jet lagged when I went back. That or I’m pretty sure all of Canada is in some manner of swirly time vacuum that nobody notices until they leave and come back again. I went on a gastronomic bender and attempted to eat everything on my food list in ten days, and I almost succeeded, though I started having to make some weird dietary concessions I’m not proud of. So if you didn’t already know, let me be the first to tell you that it’s inadvisable to eat a steak for dessert. That, and mashed potatoes don’t belong on salad.

Other highlights of my trip included a sit down dinner with my family, whereupon my sister gave the single most useful advice for anyone dealing with creditors I’ve ever heard, which I will be implementing forthwith, namely ,”I don’t even open the envelopes, I just send them a bunch of money every once in a while and then I don’t get bills for a few months.” Also I may have accidentally nicknamed my best friend’s dog Labiaface. Look at the picture before you judge me.

I decided that I won’t make any New Years resolutions this year because looking back, I haven’t kept a single one. Using self-guilt as a motivating force to better yourself only works if you hold yourself accountable for shit, and I simply can’t be bothered to endeavor toward whatever dubious honor there is in keeping a resolution that I’ll cheat on anyway. Take my last New Year’s resolution for example. I faked a small win on bag clutter by cleaning my purse out regularly, but all I’ve really accomplished is a steady transfer of rubbish to my car via my bag, and now my car is a slatternly hoboshack on wheels. I think there’s a nest somewhere in my backseat. When you’re bitterly aware that not only are you incapable of achieving your better tomorrow (if Scientologists can do it, why can’t you?), each broken promise regresses you into a swampy trench of moral decay and all of a sudden you suspect you’re a duck rapist or something equally as sinister. Trust me, it’s better this way.

On a happier note, this year’s Christmas wasn’t quite the wimpy Charley Brown affair it was last year. We went up to Mt.Haruna’s illumination on Christmas Eve, looked at the pretty Christmas lights and ate Kinoko Udon. Both of us were frozen, but Adam insisted on staying a while longer to make a snow daruma since he’s “been carrying around the soul of a snowman in [his] coat pocket for 2 years in the form of cardboard eyes and mouths” (I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions) so I pulled over to the side of the road on the way home so he could make a snowman out of the crusty road-side snow, only to have it collapse 2 seconds after he made it. He said it “had a short life, but at least it lived.” Then we drove down to KFC and waited a half hour for our chicken. The lineup was 70 people long and resembled a manic Wii lineup. Only instead of a Wii you get greasy chicken. I don’t know if that’s an anticlimax; I suppose it depends on who you are and how much you like chicken. Anyway we got back home and ate it while watching A Muppet Christmas Carol because the original’s too scary and I refuse to watch it.

Our Scotsman (by the by, we adopted a Scotsman, and yes you may borrow him but treat him kindly and brush him twice a day) got us tickets to an onsen in the north of Gunma for Christmas. This bento was supposed to make the trip with us, but I procrastinated starting it until midnight and I was up until 5 making it, so I slept through the morning and we didn’t end up going after all. And so it got eaten in the living room while we watched Korean soap operas all day:



It’s New Years themed, see? See the bunnies? Those are New Years bunnies. For New Years.

AND THEN:


Check out what might be the most genius idea I’ve ever had: combining Word of the Day and The Band Name Generator to create awesome band names. Be the envy of all your friends. Directions: simply take the word of the day and slap it in to the Band Name Generator and pick and best one and you JUST CAN’T LOSE:


End Mansuetude And The Multiple Eleven


Sockdolager Ectoplasm And The Incredible Catalyst


Nostrum Democracy


Nth Anyday


Jungun Face


*You can’t use these ones because one day I’ll front my own nerd-core hip hop group and give Optimus Rhyme a run for his money YOU’LL SEEEE.

/hiatus

I think I can safely say that we’ve all been in a situation where there’s nothing left for you to do at work and all of a sudden you’re looking around for things to keep you occupied. You can’t just sit around picking at your bellybutton because it isn’t professional, and you think “I should really update my blog” until you’re filled with an overwhelming sense of dread, and for procrastination’s sake you root around in your purse in search of candy you HOPE you forgot you left in there, but there isn’t any candy, and there’s nothing left except to quit munting around and write some internet baloney.

I have no excuse for neglecting this blog. I’d like to say that I’ve been too busy doing awesome things like riding ostriches or winning at poker, but the truth is I spent most of my time indoors forming an unhealthy emotional attachment to my couch and wondering what Jeff Goldblum is up to these days. And so I intend to mislead you with this cleverly assembled photo montage of my doings since September, adding inventive elements here and there so you will be reassured that I am less of a social cocknuckle than my blog implies. Quite frankly, reconciling my dorky secret internet life with my real life is not something I feel is in my best interest, as I am unequipped with the mental capacities to judge what is appropriate in a given situation and would likely discuss Hampster Dance while making your wedding toast.

Anyway, get your scrolly finger at the ready…. GO.

Nikko

Lovely fall romp in Nikko. More pictures can be found here.


Bento

Halloween



My award-winning Halloween costume which landed me some approving thumbs-ups/back-pats. I know what you’re thinking. How can a costume be this sexy AND win the award for Best Makeshift Gunt? The world may never know.


Beer fest



Annual event in Yokohama where a huge selection of exotic brews were on sample.
Number of independent brewers attending: 300
Number of types of beers Chelsey ingested over a three hour period: 13
Number of disapproving looks amassed: Unknown.


Orange Cheese Drink



I feel creepily manipulated into ingesting whatever mingy seasonal delicacy my local convenience store has on offer.

Fujido Caves

Largest caves in the Kanto region. Took roughly an hour to walk though.

In other news, the following is what happens when Adam gets a new videogame and I am left to my own devices. With little else to occupy my twee brain, decorating his head seemed diversive enough.

I think it looks like he just climbed out of Roger Rabbit's laundry hamper. I can't be held accountable for this, as it's clear that I should not be the one making desicions about what constitues an appropriate use of my time.




Tomorrow is Christmas Eve! YEY

Cambodia

Bunking off to Cambodia and Laos this summer was the best idea that I’ve ever come up with. We stayed in Siem Reap for 4 days, and I couldn’t have asked for a better vacation. The main draw of Siem Reap is, of course, Angkor Wat. It’s the biggest, grandest, best preserved temple of them all and it certainly commands some respect. It used to be a state temple built for King Suryavarman II in the 12th century. Now it’s a collection of ruins slowly being swallowed bit by bit into the jungle. The funny thing is that it probably looks a lot better ruined than it did when it was new. It is an intricately carved stone relic entangled with massive trees whose roots bind and strengthen the entire structure, and the effect is rather beguiling.

The ancientness of the temples is hard to wrap your head around. It feels like you’re on some sort of elaborate movie set and nothing is real. It was hard to take it all in. Oddly enough, the best thing I can compare it to is the Vatican museum, where everything is so intricate and detailed and expansive that your eyes are over-saturated with awesomeness and you don’t know quite where to look, so you just stand there with your mouth open while street-kids root around unnoticed for valuables in your fanny-pack.

Each temple had its own draw, but I’ll spare you my take on each of them and instead offer you a couple pictures of each.

The above shot was taken while walking around on a ledge along the outer wall of the Angkor building. One of the best things about these temples is that they are 100% permissive to wandering. You can climb all over everything and poke around in tiny passageways and no one really cares. A stark contrast to other, decidedly less easy-going relic sites; try Googling “I got yelled at at the Parthenon” and see what comes up. (Consequently, “why are Greeks so angry” is a popular Google search as well.)

The downside was that for every temple you visited, there was a garrison of souvenir merchants and their children all waiting to harangue you into buying something. It was like Adam and I were walking piñatas full of money and if they shouted at us long enough we would explode and they could gather up all our precious money-guts. “Hey Lady, you want buy something? Look, you buy? Best price for you!” Sometimes the handicraft women would shove something into your hands and then refuse to take it back, hoping you’d feel obliged to pay for it. Lucky for me, having relented possession of all our collective monies to The Boyfriend, I escaped scot free by callously pointing at his pockets and deflecting their attentions onto him, while triumphantly scuttling away. I believe it was afterward that I paused to consider my lowly moral state.

Anyway, as for non-temple related activity, we chartered a boat to the floating village of Kompong Luong, which is a whole community of people who have built their homes and businesses on a massive lake. They have everything they could want: floating restaurants, gas stations, convenience stores, hospitals, karaoke bars, you name it. At one point we saw a man in a motorboat casually towing his entire house behind him.

We went to the floating school and donated some floating food to the floating children:

We also went for some exotic Cambodian BBQ where we tried some snake, crocodile, and ostrich. They tasted like pork, chicken, and beef respectively. Afterwards we retired to our hotel and watched HBO, as we are deprived of American television as of late and were suffering from a raging case of meat sweats.

And then it was off to Laos…

I’ve set up a Flickr account so click here if you’re interested in more photo-ey goodness of the trip.

Laos

People were generally quite interested when I mentioned that we were going to Cambodia. “Angkor Wat,” they would say, and nod at each other and murmur generally agreeable things about vacationing there. Laos was met with only feigned interest. “Laos, huh? So… what’s in Laos? Frankly, I didn’t even really know the answer myself, but Laos turned out to be quite a boon.
It has a very different vibe than Cambodia, a lot more laid back. We stayed in Luang Prabang, a leftover French colonial town, and a World Heritage site. It’s absolutely picturesque and mixes French architecture and influence with East Asian culture seamlessly. It’s also lot cleaner than Siem Reap in general. And it has a particularly nice sky.

One of the best things about Luang Prabang is that there’s no shortage of Buddhist monks in saffron robes walking around the town, tending to their busy monk agendas and shaving each others’ heads or whatever it is Buddhist monks are into nowadays. Apparently most young Lao men voluntarily choose to join a monastery where they spend a few years as a monk, after which time they can choose to leave or continue living the ascetic life. They walk around the town stoically, but behind closed doors you see them drinking milkshakes and chasing each other around trees and dancing the Charleston, and other such frivolity.

One thing we did really want to see was Tat Kuang Si falls, which were supposed to be these gorgeous turquoise layered waterfalls about an hour north of Luang Prabang. They are so gentle that you can swim around in each pool, all the way down the falls. Adam and I wanted to have them to ourselves, so we opted to wake up before dawn to catch our tuk-tuk for the hour long, bumpy ride out. Because August had so much rain, Tat Kuang Si falls had churned itself into a muddy brown froth, so there was no chance at frolicking in turquoise crystal pools. Disappointed, (doubly-so because I had to put on the patently unfashionable Tony-the Tiger swimsuit I found in a Japanese department store*) I dragged by stripy Kellogg’s butt back to town. The falls were still nice to look at, even if they were brown:

Anyway, Tat Kuang Si aside, we had an excellent time. We enjoyed the scenery, poked around the town, got some massages, and ate some delicious food. Lao cuisine is an incredible amalgamation of Thai, French, Indian and Chinese... Like eating a hollowed out a baguette filled with beef vinadloo and dipped in coconut curry and oyster sauce. Definitely going back someday.

*the other option being something like this

Bento / Coming to a Theatre Near You

Frankly, this doesn’t really qualify as a post because I can’t be bothered to write anything interesting since it’s too bloody hot and I’m extremely lazy. Be warned that it’s entirely likely there may be more posts like this one in the future due to the adverse neurological effects the summer heat is having on my brain. It seems my logical, rational thought centres are being fried, and blogging without those always turns into megalomanic fits and nonsensical babble A LOT GIVE VERY JANKY COOKIES SINCE BECAUSE ENJOY OF IT, YOU TANGO YANKEE.

If this continues, the bright side is that I’ve worked out how to play it to my advantage, as displayed by this scientifically infallible sequence I just made up: 37°C weather → really fucking hot → heat stroke → irreversible neurological damage → behavioural abnormalities conveniently blamed on said neurological damage → convince overly sympathetic boyfriend that if I behave I get cake → free cake

Foolproof.

Anyway, here are some more pictures of another bento I made:



I’m especially proud of the wiener sushi.

So in a recent movie-themed lesson I taught, I gave the students a copy of this screenshot from the movie Brazil:



If you’re unfamiliar with this film, it’s kind of like 1984, but on crystal meth and with more hallucinogenic dream sequences. Without telling the students the name of the film and with only the screenshot to go on, they were supposed to come up with a title they thought would fit best. Afterwards the class voted for their favourites.

Here are some of the epic movie titles they came up with:

Cannibal Soldier
Silent Muscle Dynasty
Mr. Nii of a Big Adventure!
Peach Boy
Middle-aged fairly white man
Angel FACE Demon’s BODY
Assassin Cook ~Milky is Mommy’s Taste~
THE MAN!!
Neo Armstrong Cyclone Jet Armstrong
Iron Beetle Man
Prince with Natural Curly Hair
GDP48♥

I really hope someone makes Assassin Cook one day.

6 Ways to Know the Internet is a Slum and Other Signs of the Coming Apocalypse

It’s exam week at school, which means that all the students are taking tests and there’s nothing for me to do. Of course I still have to come to work, but I just sit at my desk and occupy my time with other pursuits varying in productive merit and/or staring vacantly into space. Most times I end up studying Japanese or offering strangers questionable medical advice on Yahoo forums. Other times I sit back and let the internet entertain me; like a red ball to a developmentally stunted seal.

Now some of you may know that I bought a unicycle recently. Frankly, it’s important that I learn how to ride the damn thing before I make myself a public liability and set off down the street like a rock star with a monkey in a Napoleon costume on my shoulder. It was while googling How to ride a unicycle that I realized that the internet (and by this I mean the faceless masses that make up much of what is on the internet) (myself included) is definitely fucked beyond repair.

I’m basing this on the Google auto suggest function that pops up when you type something in the search box. The suggested lists are calculated by popular searches; the most popular of which will be nearer to the top. So, as you type something into the search bar, Google offers you its ideas on what it thinks you might be searching for, based on related searches conducted by other mammals such as yourself, who all want to know how to do one thing or another.

So while searching for something completely innocuous, I was being given a number of less-than-upstanding options.

"How to ride a unicycle"

Well, it stands to reason that this tops the list. It is Google Canada, after all. Unfortunately for me, smoking pot has nothing to do with riding unicycles... Or does it?

Actually, when I think about it, I don’t really have much of a problem with ripping DVD’s. Or the other thing.

WIN

Later on in the day I was thinking about what to cook for dinner and about how quickly the rice turns bad in the summer. So I googled “How to keep rice fresh.” This is the aftermath.

For fuck’s sake, people. Really? I’m no criminal mastermind, but if I were to go out and do a job on somebody, I wouldn’t want this showing up in my search history.

As a member of the fucking human race I’m not proud of the fact that enough people need Google to help them out with this that it’s number two on the auto suggest. Yes, I’m aware that, as a blogger, I’m a member of the mouth-breathing internet community and therefore am among those with under-developed social skills. Having said that, there’s just no excusing this.
I just like the mental image this gives me.

There you are. Proof that your half-baked, DVD pirating, racoon infested, unicorn enthusiast, mouth-breather of a neighbour IS OUT TO KILL YOU.

Takahigashi School Festival

Well… Summer is in full swing whether I like it or not, unapologetically melting my ice cream and giving me sweaty underboob. Also, the 35 degree weather is making my apartment smell like eggs and I simply don’t know what to make of it.

Last weekend was my school’s triennial school festival. These things happen in junior high and high schools here, and it’s basically a showcase of class projects, music, art and food all put together and run by students. Really, it’s just an excuse for them to come up with something creative as a class project that they can show off to their parents or whomever it is they’re trying to get approval from. It’s completely up to the students to decide what they want to do. This year all of the classrooms were gutted of desks and chairs and were transformed into student-run cafés, art displays, reading rooms, and haunted houses. There were also some more civilized/educational ventures set up, such as a land mine information and contribution station, tea ceremony rooms, and various social awareness exhibits. The sophisticated minds in class 1-4 pooled all their collective wisdom and decided that the best thing to do would be to fill their classroom with an ungodly number of balloons for no reason:

There’s no question as to their genius.

The festival lasts for two days, and the second day is open to the public, so I invited Adam along to check it out. We spent some time checking out the classes and eating at the cafes, though Adam spent the majority of the day among a constant mob of giggly high school girls. They descended on him like spider monkeys.

I, in turn, was bombarded with demands to define my relationship to him. In case you’re unaware of the kind of relentless inquisition Japanese high school girls are capable of, it went something like this:

Student: Chelseeeey!

Chelsey: Hi!

Student: *pointing to Adam* Your boyfriend?

Chelsey: Maybe…

Student: *incredulous finger stabby action* Chelsey!

Chelsey: Yes?

Student: *making a heart shape with her hands* LOVE LOVE?

Chelsey: ….

Student: OH YES. IT IS VERY LOVE. WHAT THE FEELING.

It was at this point that we devised a sort of vaudeville “Who’s on first” routine to confuse them while we made our escape.

I drew these handsome caricatures of us. The hearts and whatnot were added later by someone else.

Witness the evolution of origami cranes!

Some random pictures from the festival: