I Used to Think You Were Crazy, Now I Can See Your Nuts!

In the midst of trying to cut weight for next month's match, I turn again to nuts. Which are good for you.

Korea: Some Pictures

Last time I was at Incheon I thought it was the loveliest airport I had ever seen (although Pittsburgh has a Calder over the escalator.) I figured it had aged some in the last 7 years but, no, it is still the nicest airport I have been in. I think Honolulu is a close second even though I began not liking it.



It was Natsuki's 1st time out of Japan. We didn't go together but we met up in the airport. Probably my favorite part of the trip, if not of the year so far, was passing through immigration. You might be thinking that that is quite odd. Let me explain. As you get to immigration there are a few lines labeled, "外国人ーForeigners." Next there are lines labeled "韓国人ーKoreans." You may see where this is going, especially if you live in Japan. There was a certain amount of Japanese people who saw the "Foreigners" line and kept walking. They gazed at the signs for "Koreans" and kept walking, only to realize there were no other options. Got you motherfuckers!! I wish they would put in bleachers so that any non-Japanese who has lived in Japan can sit and wait for that moment. Truly breathtaking. You can see the gears sparking.



This is Soju. This is not a wine cooler. Drink it, but with great caution. This is yogurt flavored.



For some reason we got it in our heads that we wanted pizza. This restaurant was caked in pizza advertisements. Everything, even the stairs said "pizza." The menus said "fall into pizza." Want to guess what wasn't on the menu? Yes. Pizza.



These F'ing bikes are everywhere. They deliver everything. At night it was lots of dry cleaning. They obey few traffic laws or conventions. They have these big metal rods that look like they are from Thunderdome. The driver pulls one out and uses it to prop up the bike like a big kickstand.



This is Korea. If you go to Seoul, you will see this. Every alleyway, and there are millions of them, looked just like some place I remembered, but probably wasn't.



This is Cheonggyecheon, which runs through the city. It used to be concreted over but is now as you see it. Seoul seems, to some degree, to be conscious of its appearance and planning. I, of course, dig that. (although I acknowledge the controversy surrounding this project.)



One thing that really strikes you going from Japan to Korea is the difference in color schemes. Korean temples and gates are generally more colorful then their Japanese counterparts, although they don't have Japan's impacting vermilion. Of course, a lot of Japanese temples used to have more of the Pure Land feel.



I don't know, I guess this is some Korean actor or something. By the way, this is in Insadong which I highly recommend. If I had more time and could wander there slowly, I would. It also had insanely cheap, quality wood-block prints that I didn't buy. We ate at a Juk (Korean porridge) restaurant that was really good.



This is the Starbuck's in Insadong which, abiding with the planning laws, has its name written in Hangul



There are lots of kooky art markets in Insadong.

Because Mochi Can't Make Itself

Japanese speakers: Kagoshima-ben, can you figure it out? (this excludes James.)

Victim or Drunkard: The Saga Continues

Well it is a fine fix I have gotten myself into. Although that saying places the blame squarely on me and I am not sure how much blame I share in this fiasco. Let me explain, apparently while I was asleep, or not conscious at the police station early Saturday morning they asked me a series of questions. Some of which I was able to answer. One of those questions pertained to my place of employment. Attempting to be apologetic and polite I gave them the name of my school and not my company. It was not a　mistake I would make whilst lucid. The police then proceeded, by their own volition, to call the city hall, the board of education and my vice-principal, at his home, at 2am, telling them that I was drunk and being held at the police station.

Let me pause here and say that I have though about this one at great length. Is it possible that I am lying to myself and was a victim of by own debauchery rather than food-poisoning. That I have let food-poisoning become a convenient excuse for my conduct even in my won mind. Here are the questions I have formed around that:

1. Drunkenness won't explain the strange and very noticeable swelling of my face which was witnessed and commented on by my housemate, without being asked about it.

2. When I awoke, I had no sense of a hangover or headache or any feeling associated with heavy drinking. I merely had the severe need to vomit.

3. If it was from drinking, why was I still throwing up at 7-8AM when the last drink I had was at 11pm? That seems a bit of a stretch.

4. This is subjective, but I was on my way home at 11:30pm after beginning drinking at 8pm. This signifies to me that it was something other than drink. This wasn't a night where I staid until morning at shouter drinking cuba libres after a night at Beat Crap drinking whatever is in those cardboard boxes. Subjective, but nothing to indicate the level of drunkenness needed to propel the story forwards.

5. When I was treated for food poisoning, I got better.

6. I lost 4kg over the span of Saturday. That doesn't happen from drinking.

I have gone over it again and again and I really don't think it was drinking, although that definitely didn't help. I also am realizing that I did try to communicate what was going on with the station staff, saying to them, "I really don't feel good. Please let me rest." While they kicked me out of the station, leaving me no way to get anywhere. I don't really blame them.

In any case, the reason I am ruminating on these matters is that the board of education is very angry with me and demanding that I come in and apologize to them and the city hall. I am not really sure what to apologize for. If I wanted to think about it like an asshole I could say that I got food poisoning at a school function arranged by the school with food selected by the school. When I was in need of medical care after eating this food, no city or school employees came to help me. In reality I blame no one, but I also don't know what blame I can accept. I ran through the scenario if I had been perfectly sober. I would have still gotten of the train to vomit. I would have still had no train to take home. I would have still been stranded outside the station. The only difference being, I would have probably asked to go to the hospital.

Anyway

Victim or Drunkard?

I can tell you two versions of the same story. The story remains the same, but if I shift the filter on it slightly what it tells you are two completely different things.

In story one, I woke up in a police station with a terrible taste in my mouth and a coating of vomit on my shoes and in splotches on my clothes. Replacing a headache in the back of my mind is a memory of being a hopeless public drunk in a train station until I was kicked out on to the street where I passed out and was taken in by the cops. I threw up in the police toilet and stared at myself in the mirror wondering what I had done. I signed for my property and caught a train home, periodically throwing up in stairwells and all over my hands. I made it home and passed out in my room failing to make it to Tokyo. Shameful.

In story two, I managed to get food poisoning at the school end of the year party. Trying to make it home, I found that I couldn't ride the train without puking. Not wanting to be a public menace, I got off the train. I sat down in the station and couldn't stop throwing up. I got weak and dizzy. Appearing as another drunk, the station closing around me, I was told to leave. I collapsed on the street and was assisted by the cops who allowed me to sleep on their couch. When I woke up, throwing up bile with out any trace of food left in it, I looked in the mirror and noticed that my face was swollen, especially around my eyes. I struggled to make it home and kept getting waves of nausea. I drug myself to the emergency room, was diagnosed with food poisoning and given medicine, which helped greatly, but left me feeling that all of the liquids had been sucked from my body.

The moral of this story, well not really a moral, the nugget of information in this story which might be helpful, is that food poisoning and being helplessly drunk are very similar to look at but feel subtly different to the sufferer. It was terrible.

Compounding all of this, in their concern for me, while I was asleep, the police found my ID and called the board of education. The board of education was upset and called my company. My company contacted me under the impression that I had been picked up by the police. I have to talk to them again tomorrow, but the hospital says they will write up an explanation on Monday.

This meant that I couldn't make it to Tokyo where my two friends where fighting for the Shooto rookie championships. They both won and I couldn't be there. If I had just been drunk, I would feel worse than I do about it. This weekend has truly sucked. Thinking back on it, it was actually kind of scary.

Recently

Recently I have been hungry for doughnuts. Doughnuts or any other sweet bread, not to be confused with sweetbreads, that has a calorie content to high to be tenable. But I am still thin relatively. I think all of my training for the match a while back is surfacing now and my latent doughnut love will surface next month and I will wonder why I am fat.

At school I have grown to hate first-year Takuma. He was a great student to begin with. Then he became a troubled student that I tried to talk to. Now he is full on stupid. He skips class and plays outside. Asked where he was, he laughs and says, "Playing." Why is he laughing? I don't know. I go to sleep seeing his stupid smiling face. Full on stupid. He is making me nuts. Although he enjoyed making Christmas cards.

Tonight is the school end of the year party. I have to stay out and drink all night and then leave to ride in a car for 7 hours at from 8 in the morning to Tokyo for the Shooto rookie finals. Sorry Ed, I meant to call, but I will only be there for the fights.

I want a doughnut.

My new band, Unvisible (tentatively) was supposed to play a show on the 20th but we can't because one guy will be in Hong Kong. This is the way it begins. We won't play until March and then something will change and we will break up leaving behind good songs for another 3-4 years.

I don't need doughnuts.

Buy Nothing Day

Wanna know what I bought? A lot of Maker's Mark. Take that Kalle Lasn. I regret my purchase 0 percent.

Otsukare Ramen Pt. 2

This was good after all that.

Tsuno Winery

I can read the article, but the only picture that pops ino my head is Clayton splayed out over a taiko drum. A good night.

Yo Metabolism!

People who don't get this shiznit make me f'n nuts. Unless they just don't care. I used to know nothing about nutrition as well until I got serious about fighting. All you here is people complain about their weight and not take any actual steps toward doing anything. If people hosetly don't care, then go forward in peace my brother. But the wife's tales that pass for science regarding nutrition have got to be through. I know you don't care.

Especially in Japan where people believe every bit of garbage that gets passed down and say things like "You eat a lot." When I try to have an apple or some peanuts every few hours instead of gulping down fried whale nuts, soupy rice and a rotten fish flavored lump of biomass three times a day.

In Japan

Alive with 9 hours sleep and a 7-layer burrito from the Taco Bell in Waikiki.

Happy Birthday Natsuki!!!

It's Natsuki's birthday.

In celebration:

Memories

Do you ever come across something randomly that you hadn't thought about in years and then you see it and wonder how you hadn't thought about it? I came across this today while reading up on rissoto. I think I remember eating it a lot. Didn't we? How did I forget? Was it years of vegetarianism?

Trash

Trying to get rid of everything in my house before I move on Friday, I ate 6 boiled eggs for dinner and drank an Asahi. That marks the first time in my life that I have ever drank a beer at my house by myself. No one can ever believe that. I drank about 1/4th of it. Oh kids, I have a problem. (the problem is I ate the ingredients for a heavy bread, I think) ohhhhh.

My New Year's Soba

New Year 2007-2008147, originally uploaded by wwc photos.

Good Stuff at about 2 in the morning after Kiyomizu Dera.

Kabu

This is the Kabu. The turnip radish. I now love it. When Brett left for Korea he got stuck with a bunch of organic vegetables that Zack had talked him into ordering and then fled the country. I bought them for $20 and worried that they would go to waste. Yesterday, hungover and immobile with knee pain I decided to make a soup. First I cut up this bad boy and decided to eat him raw. Best vegetable I have ever eaten, hands down. The outside tastes like raw potato and feels colder towards the middle. It isn't sweet but it isn't bitter. The stems taste like warm butter, even though they were in the fridge.


The soup turned out quite good, but sliced up and raw is the way to go on this one. Oh, kabu! I sing your praises.

I Can Stop

I have meant to write an assortment of post over the past week but I have been either drunk, tired or both. Now I am just one. Pick! I am sorry for the lack of interesting content, but I felt I couldn't bring the heat. I had an end of the year party on Friday and drank with the teachers. My team one the quiz game, partly on the strength of me being able to find Myanmar on a map and later by pulling the highest value card out of a pile. Congratulaions me. No after party meaning an hour long ride on the train, standing up drunk. Back to Kyoto where I meet Brett downtown and trade Brett a used hardrive for a bag of organic vegetables. On to the raggae show with Atsuko-most certainly my type- where I listen to some half decent live raggea, feel left out, get left out and then have my vegetables stolen from right under my nose only to ride my bike 20 minutes home in the Kyoto humi-freeze. On to Saturday where I hang out with Akko even though I didn't really feel like it. Found a good Korean restaurant called Puruda-I recommend- drank even though I didn't want to, tried to be entertaining and went to a bar where one of the guys told me I was very handsome. Congratulations me. I was then told, for the second time this month, and by two people, that I look like the dude from Prison Break. Only because I have a shaved head and a map tattoed on my body. The funny thing is; that's true! So Akko talks me into watching a movie, after drinking, that starts at 12. It is my first trip to the theater in my neighborhood, which is rad, and we saw the Bourne Ultimatum, which was probably good but I was beer drinking tired. I remember there being things in the movie I wanted to talk about.....but I can't think of them now. By the way, never read the books. They are absolute garbage and the only reason I finished all 9,000 pages of one of them is the same reason I don't walkout of movies or leave sporting events early. I think I would have walked out of Domino...what an incredible load of shite. Are there as many typos in this as I feel that there are?

Ceviche

Prompted by Anthony Bourdain, I attempted to make my first ceviche last night. I went down to Nishitachi and got some octopus. I think I offended the fish lady. I made sure it was really fresh, as the recipes kept insisting it should be. It took so damned much lemon juice, 12 lemons. I spent too much money. I couldn't find any hot peppers. I used onions and Tobasco and some peppers. In the end it wasn't bad, but it was heavy on onion and light on protein. I think I might try something with shrimp and fruit next. I used the leftover lemon flavored onions on top of some pasta tonight and it was pretty okay. I consulted my personal nutritionist, Natsuki, who informed me that Japanese lemons aren't acidic enough to really make a ceviche. Oh well.

Sake Sangria

Here is the recipe for sake sangria that we made for the matsuri party. We were trying to do Japanese themed drinks. The green tea infused vodka also came out well once Ed adjusted the vodka levels down and the Cointreau and fuitiness up.