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Ok, kids.. here we are again, with another installment of "Godzilla Attacks Japan"
And by Godzilla, I mean Chas.

Well, here we are with another week gone by. Where to start..hmm.. how about where I
left off? Last Friday, I went to Zemlyak's house.. My host mother was attending a
wedding in Nagano, Japan(where they held the winter olympics, yes..) and I had the
house to myself. I didn't know it, but my host mother is friends with Kris Zemlyak's
host mother, and they talked on the phone on Thursday night. Since I was gonna be
home alone, they decided I should go to Kris's house to eat dinner. So I went home
after school with Kris. We played a little guitar, piano, and he showed me the house.
We ate curry rice for dinner. Then we went and met the rest of the Notre Dame guys
at the station and took them to Kris's.. we were going to watch Monty Python's 
"The Life of Brian," but it was all in Japanese and stuff.. so we ended up just
watching "Office Space." Then we all went home.

Saturday, I vegged out majorly.. I just slept in until 12:30, watched two movies
that were on TV, and played guitar. I wrote a song, too. After that, I called
Kris to see if he wanted to go to the karaoke bar, and we agreed that we would meet
at 8:30pm at the station. So I went, and got there excessively late. At 9pm, he was
not at the station, so I just went to the karaoke bar. 

It turns out that Kris got there at 8:45pm, thinking I had already left.. two
Japanese girls followed him off the subway, and asked him if he wanted to go to
dinner with them. He did, and they proceeded to hit on him in broken English. He
got their cell phone numbers. 

Anyway, I got to the subway station at nine, and called the karaoke place to get some
directions to the place. She told me to wait there, and she came and picked me up. So
we go, and I sit down, have a drink or two, sing some, and talk to the hot Filipino
girl all night. Eventually, toward the end of the night, I ask the girl out to dinner
for Sunday. She agrees, but since she has to work at 7 pm, we decide on 2pm Sunday.

I go home, and remember suddenly that I am supposed to go see Sumo on Sunday with the
ND crew and some others. Bummed, but charged that I have a date, I go to bed.

The next morning, I get up at 8:30 to the sound of Kris calling me and telling me
that it was decided that we would all meet at the station at 9:15 to go to sumo. 
I hurry up, and eventually get to the station around 9:45a. I end up going to sumo
alone, and finding the guys. Sumo starts at 11:20, and we have great seats. As the
preliminary matches begin, we start betting on who is going to win. Mostly just 10
and 5 yen bets, but I made a coupla 100 yen bets! In all, everyone came out with
little or no change, except me. I won all of Paul's and most of Alex's coins. It
paid for my train ride to Horita station! 

I left sumo at 1:00, just as the stuff was starting to get really cool. But I had a 
date, and I am not one to cancel a date(especially for overweight japanese men in 
diapers knocking each other around). So I get to Horita station, the closest station
to the karaoke place. Knowing that it is either north or south along this road,
I begin south. After approximately 45 minutes of walking south, and not seeing this
place anywhere, I turn around and head back. It is now 2:15, and the date is at 2.
I have called a coupla times to the karaoke place, and the lady who owns it is not
there. My date answers the phone, and doesn't understand that I am lost. And she has
only been there for three months, so she doesn't know the area or even her address.

I turn around, and head north. After about 2 1/2 hours north on foot, and countless
phone calls to the karaoke place, I give up. I walk back to the station and go home.
By the time I get back to the station, the same station where I started, it is about
6:30pm. I have, in a physics displacement sense, gone absolutely nowhere. After
5+ hours of walking, my Converse shoes are beginning to wear through, I am exhausted
from 1) Going to bed at 4am and getting up at 8:30am and 2) walking the equivalent of
a marathon in southern Nagoya, Japan. 

No exaggerations. 

Well, when I get home, I finally sit down for the first time since sumo, and call the
girl. She finally realizes that I am lost, but her aunt is still not there and I have
no idea how to get there. I consider the date thoroughly cancelled. In spite of this,
the girl begs me to come to the bar anyway. I ask her how to get there, and she says
she doesn't know. So I give up and spend the night watching movies on TV.

Furthermore, my host mother calls and says that she was going to come home that
night, but that she is just going to stay in Nagano for another day. She would
return the next afternoon. 

Sunday, I watch approximately 7 straight episodes of Star Trek Voyager, following the
storyline in the order that they originally appeared. It becomes my favorite show
so far in Japan. 

My host mother returns around 4pm, and asks me if I want dinner. I said I was fine,
because I had just eaten a snack around 3 o'clock. She says she is going to the store
and would make dinner when she got back. However, around 7:30p, I am starving, and
she is nowhere to be found. At 11:00, I go to bed for the night. At 11:30, she comes
home and asks me if I had eaten. She brought me an obento, which is a box lunch. It 
holds the equivalent of salisbury steak, some rice, about four spaghetti noodles, and
about a half a spoonful of creamed corn. 

Anyway, that was on Monday. We didn't have class on monday because it was Sports Day.
How ironic that my sports day was devoted to watching TV on a couch for almost 10
consecutive hours. 

Wednesday, I was supposed to go to a Welcome Party on campus, sponsored by the Naice
club. (They are basically just Japanese girls that speak some English. This is
evidenced by the fact that the name of their club is a mispelling of the word "Nice")


David and AJ will both enjoy this, I'm sure.

However, it started at 4pm. Alex, Paul, and a guy from Illinois named Bill were all
going to see some Japanese Professional Wrestling that night, and I wanted to go. 
But since I spent a HUNDRED DOLLARS TO SEE CATS IN JAPANESE, I figured I should save
my money. The tix were $30 each. So I was going to this Naice party, when Alex
comes up to me and tells me that Paul isn't going because he is tired and has
homework to do. So he wants to sell me his ticket for $20. I resist, until he ends
up giving it to me for free, and telling me that I have to go. 

Alex, Bill and I compromise, and decide to go check out the party before we head to
wrestling. The following things are evident as we approach:

1. The party is starting at 4, and they don't serve food until 5. We have to be at
wrestling at 5-ish. We can't afford to waste the time.

2. Not many people are attending, and it will be quite boring.

3. All of these girls want American boyfriends, and quite possibly husbands. We are
the lobsters, and they are the little kids in the grocery store staring into the
tank, waiting to pick one out to take home. 

We quickly leave, and head to wrestling. We get there, get great seats, and enjoy the
show. Bill has a Japanese girlfriend that he met in the States, and she is with us.
She translates certain things for us. Wrestling was a lot of fun, because there were
two American wrestlers that have moved into the Japanese wrestling circuit. One of
them was banned from American wrestling because of three pot-smoking incidents.

It was overall, a great time.

Last night, (Thursday) I went to Sakae to an ATM and got some money out. I need to
get as much as I can transferred into my Japanese account. It is very inconvenient
to search for an international ATM. 

When I returned at 5:30p, my host mother was not there. In fact, it was about
11:00pm when she returned, and she brought me the exact same obento as before. Now
I enjoy the salisbury steak thing as much as the next guy, but BLECH! And even worse,
it was ice cold. 

Tension slowly builds.. 

While she was gone, yesterday, I wrote another song. And I have been reading a good
deal of the Idiot's Guide to Eastern Philosophy. I finished the Hinduism, Buddhism, 
Taoism, and most of Confucianism. I am almost done. Big book, but keeping me
occupied, definitely. That is, when I am not watching TV. Like I say, you really
have to go to Japan to see good American TV. Has anyone seen the Wallflowers video
for Sleepwalker? I really like that song a lot. 

I am not sure what my plans for this weekend entail, but I am pretty sure I will not
be heading to any karaoke bar. I have come to a conclusion: the girl is pretty, but
her Japanese is much worse than mine, and her english is even worse than her Japanese.
We can barely communicate, and from my experience a relationship is hard enough to
hold up when you both speak English! They always say that communication is the
cornerstone of any good relationship. And not to disappoint anyone out there, but
I am kinda wary of any kind of purely physical relationship. Especially with girls
that work in bars in slightly seedy areas of town. Catch my drift?

Well kids, that is all for now. I have been a little sick lately, with lack of sleep,
irregular eating and sleeping patterns, stress from school, etc. Oh yeah, and I'm in
Japan.

Later, keep me in your prayers.. and out of Karaoke bars. Oh yeah, sign the guest
book I added to the main page! 
Chas

"Waaaalll..." - Jimmy Stewart/Brian Grundy

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