E! where CHI GO? YU ZA WAAAA???

A couple of weekends ago I went snowboarding with a few friends - Kazumi, Mac, and Mac's friend Rebecca. Although it's been an extraordinarily mild winter in Japan this year, we hoped that the famous snow of Niigata prefecture (specifically an area called Echigo-Yuzawa... suddenly, the post title makes a lot more sense, right?) might still live up to its reputation and that we would pull up on the train to beautiful, snow-covered mountains.

Well, the mountains were beautiful, but more like "snow-dusted" rather than "snow-covered." Upon de-training, we looked toward the mountain and stood in awe... of dirt! Where was the snow?! This was looking like it would be worse skiing than what I've experienced at Mountain High - the high desert ski resort about an hour and a half from my house in Southern California (the fact that the words 'desert' and 'southern' are both used to describe this ski resort should tell you what kind of snow it boasts). After Rebecca and I were fitted for our Western Monster feet (with my double layer of thick socks, I went from my normally just Tranny-sized shoes of 25.5 to Monster-sized snowboarding boots of 27 - needless to say, the guys handing out the boots thought we were freaks), we got ourselves changed and stuff lockered and headed for the chair lift. I refrain from calling it a ski lift, because, as I mentioned before, it was lifting over just plain old dirt. Finally, after several lift rides to the top, we saw snush - my own word, which means snow slush. There was some snow to be seen here, but to be honest, it was hardly worth the two hour train ride and subsequent local ride and two chair lift rides that we went through to get there. But, we carried on, ever persevering against progressively sadder odds. After yet another two chair lift rides over actual snow-ish parts, we got to the top of the mountain - and found snow! It had been there all along, just hiding on the other side of the mountain. Cheeky snow! Okay, so it wasn't powder and there was hardly any base to speak of and there were lots of brown and beige patches to be found, but we ended up having a merry old time of it anyway. To be honest, I was pretty okay with the snow that we did have because it was similar to the snow I'm used to back in California - at the place I usually board, SnowSummit, which though still in SoCal, is not in the desert and does get decent snow.

Below is a video of me skiboarding. For those of you who don't snowboard, you may not have realized that the snowboarders worst nightmare is not, in fact, crashing as you try to land a big jump or weave your way around moguls on a black diamond run without skiers trying to push you off the run. The boarder's worst nightmare is a flat stretch of run with no incline to speak of and none in sight. If a boarder loses his/her speed/momentum on a flat part, there's basically no recourse but to unstrap yourself from your bindings, pick up your board, and walk to where the run starts to incline again. This sucks. Especially if the snow is good and thick, when each step of your heavy snowboard boots sinks all the way in just for you to have to pull it out again and again, step after step, until, Eeyore-like, you finally get to a place where you can go downhill again. When I've been lucky enough to board with advanced enough skiers who can go without poles on the flat parts (flat parts aren't the bane to skiers that they are to boarders), I have had occasion to use their poles to get me through the flat parts without having to unstrap myself. Thus, skiboarding. I figured this out while skiing with my parents over the years and luckily, Rebecca is a pretty advanced skier who kindly let me borrow her poles for the flat parts. She's the one who provided the poles and the filming. Thanks, Rebecca! Unfortunately, we didn't think to film me skiboarding when we were on an actual flat part, but the area in the film is flat enough that you get the idea. My "swoosh" sound effects and pole-hopping are just for entertainment value and not necessary to successfully skiboard - though I'm sure they make you go faster. Enjoy!

Sweet Caroline!

C'est un post particulierement pour mon amie Caroline A. Merci mille fois pour tes comments sur mes posts et les emails que tu m'as envoye mais aux lesquels je n'avais pas eu le temps a repondre. Tu me manque et j'espere que la vie parisienne (fin, la vie l'OCDEienne) n'est pas trop dure sans moi - je sais qu'elle va mieux avec un autre B-grade sans grands choses a faire. ;) hee hee!!

Okay, je suis sure que j'ai fait bcp de fautes - oh la la la la la la!! ごめんなさい！(Sorry! :) )

This one's goin' out special to Caroline! Enjoy!!

Wait for it, wait for it...





I saved the best for last...
SNL - skit w/ Justin Timberlake




Boy, oh, boy, it's a Timberlake-aganza!! Yum, yum, gimme some!

Pump up the Volume! Pump up the Volume! Dance!

I like living in Tokyo, don't get me wrong. But you know that New York rocks Tokyo's world when it comes to just plain old cool. You just don't get characters - and character - like this in Tokyo.



Yes, Virginia, there really is a beatboxing flutist in Washington Square Park.

The video is kind of long (about 3 minutes), but stick arond for the second half of it if you wanna relive your early years.

Blog note: Sorry for not having too much to post about Tokyo itself these days. So far, all I've got in my line up has to do with crotches and class divisions (two separate posts, btw)... so, not sure how those fit in right now. Anyway, hopefully brilliance will come to me soon.

These boots were made for walking

It may seem like just yesterday - okay, it was actually about a month and a half ago - that I reported to the masses that I had gotten a job (!). Alas, I have since discovered several things that have ultimately prompted me to give my one-month notice at J's Kitchen. That's right, folks, a mere 7 weeks after beginning work at the restaurant, I'm turning in my dish-washing gloves.

Here is what I learned/my reasons for leaving:

1) I discovered that I have an allergy to the dish soap they use there that made my hands look like they'd contracted some form of what Erica and I decided to call 'Hand Herpes.' Don't worry, it's not contagious, it just didn't look very pretty. In fact, the dermatologist thinks that the fact that the hand herpes continued even after I started to wear dish-washing gloves might mean that I also have an allergy to latex in general. Damn, there goes that membership to my local Latex Fetish/Knitting group!

2) During the job interview, I came to understand that I would be working in both the kitchen and on the floor - as apparently everyone who works there does. I took this to mean that I would get to learn how to cook veg/Japanese food (in addition to pro-cooking basics such as cutting/chopping super fast) as well as waitressing in addition to the dirty work that people would take turns at. Well, I basically became the go-to person for the dirty work (i.e. washing dishes and taking out the trash) and the no-go person for the waitressing. I was only carted out when a large group of gaijin came in or someone speaking English was on the phone. It's not that I minded dish-washing or trash-outing so much, it's that these were basically the only things I was doing and that's not what I signed up for. People who were hired after me and with the same amount of experience were let out on the floor by themselves almost immediately. It became clear that they didn't intend to train me to take orders in Japanese, which is what I had hoped/thought would happen. I did learn how to cut veggies better and faster, so that's a skill that I happily take with me. However, all the people who really worked in preparing the food have either gone to some form of culinary school or were lucky enough to work in other restaurants that trained them in the past, and it didn't seem like the manager was eager and/or willing for me to learn more of the ropes around the kitchen - again, I think this was mainly a language thing in that it's too much of a hassle to train me through hand gestures (I guess not everyone knows the international hand signal for julienne) and stunted Japanese.

3) I like waitressing - when I'm allowed to chat with the customers and my fellow employees. In Japan, there isn't really a "chat with the customers" culture, and while I was allowed to chat with my co-workers when out of range of customers (i.e. in the kitchen), we aren't really supposed to talk to each other if we're actually working the floor - even if we're just standing around in the enclosed pantry area waiting for the food to be ready to take to the customer, etc. Anyway, I'd suspected that I would like waitressing because I like working with people and talking to customers. In fact, the few times that I did get to waitress at J's, I really enjoyed it. However, it's not worth only 900 yen an hour when I only got to do this maybe once every two weeks.

4) I don't like hand herpes.

5) Late hours and late meals are not conducive to a good night's sleep and a productive Japanese class in the morning.

So, that's my story and I'm stickin' to it. You're probably wondering what my next step is. For the time being, I'm just focusing on finishing out my time at J's and my studies. In the meantime...

WATCH THIS SPACE. :)

I'll leave you with this picture that I found recently. They're too cute!!