My ears are still ringing slightly 1 week later. Picking a spot next to the main speakers up front wasn't the smartest thing to do but was one of the better vantage points in Club Quattro. I held out for Propagandhi to come on before getting all dirty in the mosh. If the previous bands(FC Five, comback kid) were anything to go by this was gonna be rockn. It's all about the circle pit here which looked rad from the outside but was actually pretty tame once you got into the thick of it. Still looking forward to my first wall of death!

Got a few pics and a bunch of 100M+ vids from Akane who chose to stay on the sidelines although she could've handled the mosh easy. Crazy stage diving from 3-high stacked speakers and cannonballs from the stage were the hazards to watch out for. There wasn't much pushing up the front of the pit and it was dead easy to get front row views. Todd was a total nutball thrashing around the stage in his boardshorts and dripping in sweat by the end of song1. They pulled out speculative Fiction to kick it off followed by all the meaner songs from LessTalkmoreRock through to Potemkin city limits. I concentrated on the crowd surfers most of the time giving them an extra boost. I think by the end I probably just looked like a giant foreign dooche throwing Japanese around with both arms :) All good!







There were 200 odd people there so not sure why they don't tour to NZ or Aus. We could easily pack that many into ex-Indigo. There were a couple of Aussie dudes there who flew from Aussie just for this show and got a cameo up on stage with salty Todd. It's been a while since going to a show and was good to get a pit work out. Looking forward to some more jcore and intenational shows soon.




I was suitably smelly by the end so got a  tshirt for the train home. Fully worth the $30 ticket!
I'll try upload the 4gigs worth of AVI to my box back home if anyone wants to see me bobbing up and down like a munter.

Man, this blog's starting to feel more and more like a chore same as everything else ... training, commuting to work, eating, showering. I wanna go bush for a while :(

Trip to UK/Europe was an eye opener. I've grown accustomed to everything Japanese and by the end of my 2/3 weeks away I couldn't wait to get back home to Koenji. I'm stealing some of the below from an email I sent a while ago cause I just poured a whiskey and can't be arsed :)

== snip ==
Once I get past the depth of History of London/UK there isn't really a lot to be impressed about other than being a good base of Operations into Europe. Bunked up with my bro Brendan in a South-London Hostel for the majority of the stay. He was working during the week so I did all the touristy stuff and met back with him for dinner on weeknights and we went to Rome for a weekend.

Rome is dirty as hell and Italian restaurateurs are pinheads. Had to stay overnight at Stanstead airport as no trains earler enought for the 8am flight so tired most of the Saturday. Did bus tour as soon as we got there and went to a pizza place at about 2pm for some eats. Ordered a pizza and big bottle of beer between us for about 20Euros and the guy kept trying to sell us other shit. Bit of Lasagne about the size of a bit of toast for 8 Euros. Frig that, just the pizza and bear thanks. pinhead:'mutters under breath in Italian'. me: What was that? pinhead:nothing. me:I thought you said something? Guy walks up and starts mouthing off about why should he turn on his oven for 2 people sharing a pizza. The bottle of beer was open at this stage and we hadn't paid so got up and left. Guy was super pissed when I did the 'foo fukula' thing that Ryan does where you gesture with flick your fingers out from under your Chin. Don't think it's italian but he knew what I meant. He came out on the street, clenched his fist and rubbed his bicep as there were customers out front. We b-lined for another shop closeby incase he got his boys onto us. Similar storey in London but at a curry place with an indian mullet, 30min wait and still no curry. bailed.

Stabby stab stab:


Crazy guy in Rome


It was either travelling alone or the Hostel that left me with a more negative view of London. It was full of Aussies and kiwis. Most of them in early 20s and suckered in by the Hostel marketing. Party hard, sleep easy. Selling tshirts with stuff like 'im drunk, you'll do' 'my liver is naughty and must be punished'. Every night the same alcoholic slob would bust into everyones room and try to drag them out on a pubcrawl. Kinda lame that I didnt go at least once but meh .. I'm a total dad now anyway. Should have bought a pair of jandals .. The showers and now my toes covered with vomit, urine and STDs. Managed to catch something called the Norovirus just before my weekend in Bath which killed me for a day.

Feeling Unwell?


Trains from London to bath(well, anywhere really) were pathetic. Should've taken 1.5 hours but took 4. 2 trains broke down and multiple delays. Subways were surprisingly shitty too. Carriages were way too small, entrance gates were balls and the whole backend IT systems crashed at least twice while I was there shutting down entire stations. Was the first system in the world I suppose but frig me ... it's time to do some upgrading in collaboration with the Japs!
==snip==
LEGO:



Netcafes
UK: Mouse, keyboard, screen, 1 pound for 20minutes of slow/locked down net
JP: Leather chair/couch, gaming rig, ps2/dvd/comics and drink bar for equivalent of 3NZD/hour

Service
UK: money <-> goods. me feeling like I should be tipping cause they look pissed off.
JP: Whole store in unisen: Welcome, come in! 400Y plz. domo arigato gozaimasu! slight bow.

Got put up in Four Seasons hotel for 3 nights as I went to our London office for a few days. Way too posh for me. I think if I'm ever lucky enough to make buttloads of money, I'll be one of those guys that dies with it all sitting in a bank account. If spending it means I have to hang out with wankers, I'll just stash it under my bed thanks.

The trip home wasn't as bad as people made it out to be when I mentioned I was flying Russia's Aeroflot. Transferring at Moscow, I felt right at home once I was on the connecting flight full of Japanese people I couldn't understand. Fell asleep on the express train from Narita Airport to Shinjuku and woke up a couple of stops past where I should have got off. I was awake close to 40 hours so was in the midst of deep deep sleep when the train dudez woke up the snoring foreigner. Stepped outside on the platform and it was a real shock. The rest of the way home I felt like I had just touched down in Japan again for the first time. Compared to UK, completly different approach to urban planning/design although a lot of it is probably historical. Streets here so nallow and buildings so small.

Akane had decide to do some redecorating while I was gone so I got home to a Bedroom decked out in Pink.

Last couple of months:
Went to Akane's uncle's wedding at Four Seasons hotel which was okish
Akane has been taking pole-dancing lessons and her class does little shows every now and then. First was at a big all night rave last year and the second was a few weeks ago in Tokyo harbour on a floating bar with crazy neons. Looking forward to the next one :D

It's starting to get warmer now and the Cheery Blossoms have made an appearance for a around 2 weeks. Met up with Akane's parents and did a big walk around near where we watched the K1 MAX last year. It was only 4 hours walking around but we were toast and had to skip shopping at the mall after. I'm getting old.



Okasan, Ottosan and Oshima-san


Got a new gaming rig for super cheap in Akiba. Couldn't be arsed buying everything separately again so bought a close to high-end prebuilt rig from one of the DIY stores for equivalent of $1200NZD minus the screen. Wasting all my 1337 cpu cycles on CS source.

Got hax R4 card for my Nintendo DS Lite too so I can 'backup' my 1000s of legally purchased NDS games on the Internet. Got a wix Jap-English dictionary for it and haven't been able to stop playing Contra4. Akane has been owning MarioKart and I reckon she could give Tom a run for his money.

Thinking of renting a car this weekend and mishing out to Fuji-ko theme park for the weekend. http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=2663680

Ballz to the wall

Take this!

Right, time for an update. How to summarise 2 months without looking like a shopping list ...

Christmas isn't officially celebrated over here so I ended up working with all the other SalaryMen Christmas day. However, somewhere in the past Colnol Saunders convinced 123 million Japanese people that xmas = KFC. I'm serious ... There are 30min queues outside  around xmas and if you want to impress  your GF you make a reservation at KFried. Illuminations are also big over here with most of the big railway stations, malls, Offices etc having huge lighting displays. Akane bought us both a ticket on a French dinner Cruise around Tokyo bay on the 23rd of Dec which was quite nice if a little on the posh side. Shakeys all you could eat pizza in Shibuya the next night was a contrast and a half. They sat us between two tables composed of gossiping teenage girls and a sports team of 13 year old girls high on drink bar and lols.



I managed to land work oncall over New Years but still got out to Akane's parents in warabi for a few nights. Seafood was eaten 3 meals a day and we played a lot of wii. Went to the local temple and shrine new years eve which had food stalls and some fair-like games. Choco-bananas and sausage for the win.



In the new year we headed to Nagano Happo skified(site of the 98 winter olympics) on a spur of the moment trip and it turned out to be the best boardign conditions of my life hands down. Deep base on no ice! Bonus points to Ronald for Cheeseburgers at the top of the Gondola. I'm amazed they haven't got makudonarudo on Mt Fuji yet. We stuck to the beginners course most of the time as it was Akane's 2nd or 3rd time snowboarding but you'd never know. She picked it up pretty quick so I started encouraging her to go quicker here and there. The beginners course weaves down the mountain cutting through the Olympic slalom course 3/4 times. Akane picked up a bit of speed as we were approaching the Olympic cutover point and she tried to slow down a lil bit by weaving left ... everything was going left except the board. She ended up headfirst down a black run and slide about 5metres on her tummy before somehow coming to a stop. I honestly thought she was going to keep going and wrap herself around a tree at the bottom. Made it home in one piece with a 4 hour sleep on the train home. Went up by myself the next weekend and hit some of the higher runs Love it! Going to get my own gear for next season and go every other weekend.

Laundry list:
1) Went to Disneyland for the entire day. Waited 30minutes for curry popcorn. Highlights .. illumination show insync to music. Best ride of the day was the classic revolving teacup. Screw the main attraction rollercoasters. This teacup ride had a wheel in the middle that you could pull on to spin the cup on it's centre axis. So as well as the machine spinning you around 2 ways you could control the speed of the 3rd way. Man I got us going quick. Akane got a photo mid ride on her camera which I'll have to pull out sometime.
2) Has snowed in Tokyo twice now which was a nice surprise to wake up to. Only stays a day though.
3) Heaps of Earthquakes too. One 2 days ago at 4am woke me up and went on for at least 1 minute. I'm worried about how this house I'm living in could handle a bigger one. When the people next door run down the stairs the house wobbles slightly. Good or bad ... who knows.
4) Hit local onsen with Kouji. Played some snooker and darts with a lil gamring on the side.
5) Finding motivation to train Muay Thai here is hard, even with the new gloves Akane got me for xmas. Think I need to schedule a fight to force me to train.
6) Finally found milk here that doesn't taste like pooz. Majority of milk here is nuked at 130degreesc for 2 seconds. The good stuff is 66degreesc for 30mins. Good things take time. Been overdosing on Milo and cereal since.

Heading to England this coming Friday for 2 weeks to catch up with my bro and scope the place out for potential future living. Will get some pics up after. Going back to an English speaking country is going to be a mindf*ck and a half.

After the very Japanese meals me and Kouji had up in Hokkaido I felt pretty confident about keeping my food down when I took Akane's family to a swanky Sushi/Sashimi restaurant in Ebisu afew weeks back. They took me in
like a son for 2 months while I was looking for work and a place to live, so thought I'd show some more appreciation via their taste buds.



The raw fish was a breeze, salmon and tuna were tasty but I struggled with the prawns head again prefering to avoid the dozen or so crunchy legs this time. The grande finale was Sea Urchin or Uni to the Japanese. All I knew of these nasty little
balls of death before tonight was that are not pleasant to stand on, I've always tiptoed around the ocean floor when swimming in the sea after hearing about my Aunty standing on one as a kid and having to get the spikes cut out of her foot in hospital.
I had no idea people ate the inards of them. Well, the gonads to be precise. It had a subtle smell so I thought nothing of it although the thought of beer and copious amounts of
raw fish all over the table did enter my mind .. I bit the bullet and did it in one go anyways. The taste was nothing short of 1000 times the smell. Take the most rotten seaweed infested rockpool at the most rank seacove and you can get
a rough idea of the taste. I wasn't embarrassed about the teary eyed involuntary refluxes at the time but felt a little embarrassed afterwards. Everyone laughed it off so I don't think I depply offended anyone :(

I did my u@most to avoid any repeat of some childhood pumpkin eating memories I have. Me and my brothers always dreaded pumpkin in any form and one particular time we were out of juice so we all decided to chase our Roast pumpkin with
cold milk. I think at least 2 of us brought up a mix of pumpkin and milk onto our plates so yeah. Words of Wisdom for the day, never chase with cold milk.

It turns out the muay thai place in Saitama I was training at was the best in Tokyo. We found one about 20mins from here which is a little smaller and the technique looks dodgy but we're going to have to settle for it. We thought we found an awesome place just over the road but closer inspection proved otherwise. Everything here costs about $150 to join and then $100 per month so I was stoked when I found a gym, kickboxing and groundfighting all under the same roof. We almost joined this gym ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVNvxh0WXVs
I started questioning it as soon as I saw scientific infront of wrestling. Anything that explicitly states science is involved loses credibility from the get go; scientology, scientific creationism, scientific wrestling. Then I found videos of the guy Bill Robinson fighting abdullah the butcher in prehistoric professional wrestling matches in Japan. The catch-wrestlingfood pro fighters they mentioned included Josh Barnett and Sakuraba of PrideFC fame. They had some notable wins but I always remember these 2 guys as taking a lot more punishment than giving.

The last straw was watching the kickboxing class that they have just 4 times a week. It was way too structured for my liking, akin to what I use to do at Taekwon-do. Everyone was counting out loud when doing 10 punches and 10 kicks etc and they'd have drink breaks literally every 5 minutes. It's been so long my pecks are getting smaller  ... :(

Still getting my tooth fixed at the dentist. It's been about 4 weeks now and I swear they're trying to drag it out as long as they can. They got an impression of my teeth for a crown today so next better be the last one.

Just finished 2 weeks of morning shifts starting at 7am and I'm glad it's over. They're working me like a Salary Man. Though I don't think I'll be able to live up to the feats of some of the heroic Salary Men that the Newspapers have paid tribute to recently. Nature was calling for one train driver but he didn't want to delay the train so he made doodies(of the hangover variety) in the drivers room. It managed to work it's way through 2 or 3 carriages and had to be taken out of service anyway but I'd give him a high five for effort. That man deserves a bonus for duty above and beyond.

TV over here is pretty average. The news is always dominated by politicians and companies cheating and lying from tax evasion to reprocessing expired bean paste and passing it off as fresh. All the game shows are hosted by 'comedians' and more often than not they involve food. ie. Guess how much she can eat, guess how much this food costs, who is the best cook.

I promise some visuals next update. I'll take my camera to Roppongi next time I go drinking with Kouji. Some guy at work has an awesome remote controlled tank setup which I'm going to go play with in a couple of weeks. http://www.geocities.jp/panzer_warriors/