Maxi Danger Uncut

Thursday, August 17, 2006

Sunday Lunch at Mum 'n' Pops.

Last Sunday headed out to the 'burbs of Kumamoto for some home cooked sunday lunch love. Dave, one of the dudes I met on the course who is from Tokyo, boarded with a host family for the duration of the course. We met his host mum on the final day of the course, and she invited the english students gang (Dave, Myself, Mari and Marcus) out for Sunday lunch. Of course, we obliged. Turned out to be possibly the best sunday lunch ever. You know things are looking good when you're greeted with this:



A 2 litre can of beer. Boo Yah! HOW GOOD IS THAT - BEST COUNTRY EVER! Kind of puts those 375ml thimbles you p.ss weak aussies refer to as 'stubbies' to shame, really...
So mum keeps on bringing out the food. What a spread it was. She laid out about eight different dishes on the table, the pick of the bunch was the fish caught the day before by pops. It was awesome. Also tried a few local specialties, including Basashi (again). Never would have picked it, but raw horse meat (with a little bit of soy and ginger) is actually pretty tasty. Pops kept the beer flowing, as apparently it's rude for your guest to have an empty glass. Being the quintessential guest that I am, I accepted every time. After lunch he whips out the Nihon Shu, a japanese rice wine. It was good stuff.
So after a couple of hours of eating and drinking, it was Samurai time. Pops goes out the back and returns with a $10,000 katana that his grandfather bought 8000 years ago. OK, may not have been quite that old, but it was at least a little bit old. After a quick lesson on how to handle the little beauty (1) it was time to unleash the ninja within. Check it:



The thing was pretty heavy, bloody sharp and very, very cool. No prizes for guessing what I want for christmas.

We wound it up shortly after, and after thanking them profusely for everything, it was time to head off. We then cruised up to a Buddhist temple which has some pretty decent views of Kumamoto.


Next up was Round 1 - a five story entertainment complex that has like a gizillion things to do. Amongst other actvities it has bowling, baseball batting cages, massage chairs, air hockey, mini motorbikes and 3 dollar beers. We hung out there for three hours and pretty much played everything. Finished up the session by playing 'UFO Catcher', that game where you have to control a claw to try and grab a prize, which no one ever wins. Except Max Danger, of course, the boss of Round 1.



Winning some chocolate bar and a fan that looks like a teddy bear definitely called for high fives all round.
To wind up the day it was off to another Nova teacher's going away party, luckily I didn't have much cash left on me so couldn't do too much damage. Massive day though, good times. I think I also have to get into the habit of taking some pictures with other people in them, just to prove I'm not hanging out with imaginary friends...

Thanks for the feedback on the ethical dilemma. I'll pass it on to my friend. The wife in question hasn't been coming to classes lately so there's been no real updates. Overall most of the feedback fell into the 'if it feels good, do it' category, but there were a couple of wise warnings that it could get pretty messy. I think I agree - dealing with chicks is confusing enough at the best of times, add extra complications and you're playing with fire. Turns out that he recently hooked up with a hottie bartender (which incidently, one of the other nova teachers was also having a fair dip at) so the wife isn't so much of an issue at the moment. Triangles, triangles.

I'd better run, got to improve my jap skills. Finshed the three week intensive course last Friday, although unfortunately doesn't feel like a great deal sunk in, so have got a fair bit of work to do to learn it all properly. I'm finding it a little bit frustrating not being able to talk to people, want to turn that around as quickly as I can. Been a little bit more relaxed this week though because I don't have to go to school in the day then work at night, so I've been focusing on perfecting my sleeping in technique.

Take it easy and talk to all you dudes soon,
Max

(1) Odd fact #1 - the correct way to grip swords and cricket bats is very similar. Form a V with your thumb and fingers, line both hands up and clasp.

Sunday, August 06, 2006

Ethical Dilemma's #1

Hello Everyone! Been a while since I last posted, that's because lately I've been busier than a North Korean nuclear physicist. A typical day at the moment consists of waking up at around quarter past eight, doing homework for about 45 minutes, then off to Jap school at the YMCA. I finish up at the Y around 2:30, come home, have a quick nap (if possible), get ready for work then head into town for four hours of english teaching love. Home by around ten for some dinner, more homework and/or hitting the town. I've also been doing a bit of overtime as well because we're pretty short staffed at the moment. Apologies for the lack of correspondance, jap school finishes on friday so next week I'll be back on the emails.
Given the above schedule, I headed out Thursday night for a couple of wind-down social beers, but by 3:00am they had mysteriously morphed into ten. I may have inadvertently stumbled on one of the ultimate truths of the universe there - if you want to gaurantee a big night, just say 'I'm only coming out for a couple of quiet ones tonight, I've got a big day tomorrow' before heading out. Definitely felt it the next day.

Busy-ness aside, did manage to check out a few of the sites around Kumamoto last weekend. One of the dudes also going to the school at the moment, Marcus, has a hire car so we cruised up and saw Mt Aso, a live volcano on Saturday. After walking around the mountain we hit an outdoor onsen (hot spring) on the way back it was pretty neat.
Sunday we hit the beach (Amakusa), was a top day for it cos it was 35 degrees and sunny. It was great to get out of the city and into the countryside.

Headed out last night with a few of the gang, and was treated to an impromptu fireworks display. We're kinda friends with a cook from one of the izakaya's that we go to pretty often, and he bought a whole stack of fireworks (from 7/11 of all places). So we jumped in his car around 1:00am this morning, headed out of the city to some docks, and set a shit-ton of fireworks off in a massive car park overlooking the water. While we were setting the fireworks off this bikie gang cruises past, about 25 revved up motorbikes whizzed by. It was pretty cool. Then we headed back into town and hit the clubs, it was a good night. Made the most of my only day off this week by sleeping in till four this afternoon. Good times.

Sometimes work is pretty funny. I had a class of four schoolgirls the other day, and the lesson was to talk about countries that you would like to move to. After I put them in pairs with the instructions to talk about where they would like to move and why, one student proudly declared "it's my dream to move to another country and marry a foreigner and have babies". Nice. They didn't teach us how to respond to comments like that in training.

A couple of the students are unbelievably switched on. I was teaching an 11 year old girl last week, and got a bit bored during the lesson so we started playing hangman. The topics was jobs, and I would like to say that I let her win on purpose, but if I did unfortunately I'd be lying. She figured out 'Police Officer' and 'Fireman' without too much trouble, and then it was her turn to think of a word. She clinched the series three nil by completely stumping me. Where an 11 year old japanese girl learns the word 'chef' (and how to spell it correctly) has got me beat.

No real news on the love front, as usual whenever I seem to be making some progress with a girl her bloody friend (or sister) comes in and cuts my lunch. New policy might be to only tune girls that are at the bar by themselves, which will reduce the chances of being blocked for a run. However girls out on their own are a little hard to find.

Lastly, this entry kicks of a new series called Ethical Dilemma's. The idea is for me to pose a question, and for the populus (ie you) to respond with their opinion or advice.
The first ethical dilemma is this: If you are single, is it morally okay to hook into a married woman?
One school of thought might be that if she's going to cheat anyway, it might as well be with you (you're not the one doing the cheating). I'm guessing the moralists will argue that it's wrong, because you know she's married and yet are still a willing participant. At the moment I'm leaning towards the opinion that if she's hot, it's okay, if not, then it's wrong.
Of course, it goes without saying that I am posting this question on behalf of a friend, who has been receiving some pretty decent vibes from a hot married woman at work.
I've changed the settings so now anyone can post a comment. If you'd like to contribute just hit the 'comments' link at the bottom right of this entry. Please post away!

Speak to you soon,
Max.