Japan, A Loser's Paradise

ok, here it is, almost a week late but the next exciting chapter in the life of a 'well hung gaijin' At the moment there is alot of chatter in the staff room regarding the upcoming Inkais (party) and i thought it was just the Maoris who looked forward to a piss up!

anyways let me get back to the story for today, oh yeah before i do, let me tell you that i rocked in baseball today! never mind that i was playing against 13-16 year olds, they still tried hard though, then i kicked arse in tennis against the girls, sometimes i feel guilty, like when you see those bullies playing rugby against old men, oh wait, i did that as well!

Sidetracked! only 2 hours before the weekend, and i have nothing planned as i am not allowed to leave the district, sometimes i feel like Thelma and Louise and saying just drive thelma, drive, then i remember that my breasts arent as perky as Thelma's (bitch)

i have only got 1 bad email so far from the ones i sent out, and that person has been removed from the list, let that be a lesson to you mum. fancy doubting my orgy with 50 women!

So it was last Sunday that i went to Kumamoto with Iihoshi san, so he could show me where i had to go when the time came on the Thursday, and there is something bad when your supervisor gets lost trying to show a stranger where to go himself, that should have said it all straight away, alas somethings just evade my simple brain.

Suddenly it was the Thursday that i set off to Kumamoto city, with its teeming city gates, boasting over 600,000 ppl. now i know how Flick felt when he arrived at the city in Bugs Life. It was a major adjustment on my part, as i had become accustomed to seeing 2 cars a week on the road, mine being one of them!

My K-car was screaming at me to slow down as i had just exceeded the 60kmph mark on my speedo for the 2nd time in its sorry exsistance, i looked at my map that Iihoshi-san had drawn for me, and that spider sense i have whimpered knowing i was doomed, let this be a lesson for yous back in the real world, never trust someone who cant speak your language! i finally found the bridge that i was supposed to go over and according to the map he had drawn, the road was supposed to split into a Y shape, when i came over the bridge (ewww did that sound dirty to you to?) the road didnt resemble that shape at all, i thought Great! well actually i said 'fuken cunts, cant speak the language. why would you give a non-japanese speaker a non-english speaking supervisor?' so i drove around and around for 1 hour hoping that all of a sudden the parking lot would suddenly appear, but it didnt. i eventually gave the organiser a ring and asked her if i could go back to my quiet little village, but she said just find a parking lot anywhere and come on down.

i get to the seminar 10min late, and walked in halfway through this ABSOLUTE FUCKWITS speech, he sounded like Ben Stiller in a drama, he thought he was sooooo funny, the worst thing about it was there were some people laughing at his jokes, i tried to jot their names down so i could either avoid them or punch them..........If you think i am just being petty then read on...........at the break i walked out and this chick asked me if i was a kiwi from N.Z. i said 'no' and she said 'oh sorry, i thought because of your bone carving...'...i interrupted her with a 'i'm just fucking with you' and we laughed, then she said 'i'm rosie, can you believe that guy that just gave the speech? was he a fuckwit or what?' such a cool kiwi! i agreed and we became firm friends, apart from the fact that she hails from Wellington. we finished off the seminars and i went to where Iihoshi san had booked my hotel, or so i thought! i eventually find the hotel and ask 'is there is a booking for Greg Lambert?' a stunned mullet look greats me, 'sorry, booking for Gleg Lambert?' i ask again, she hands me a list which does not have my name on it, great. they allowed me to book in anyway, so crisis #2 is averted. i check into my room and then go into the giant sheltered walkways which are lined with shops looking for a feed, i found KFC and spend $20nzd on 2 bits of chicken and a fillet burger, yah japan. now you can see why they are all so skinny (ewwww what a racist remark) on my lonesome walk i meet the 2 girls who gave the seminar on safety in Kumamoto, one of the chicks was attacked here on her 3rd day! poor thing, i tried to give her a consolation hug 1 year late, but she thought i was after something else, whatever it was i couldnt see it on her, so i thought it might be down her top, so i tried to prise it out...............ahhhhh i'm just fucking with you all! i did see those girls though, i asked the pommy one, Jeanette where the bar was that we were meeting at tonight, and she said she would show me (like i havent heard that one before) she is useless with directions and we kept getting lost, not that i minded, it was killing time and she made me look less and less like a loner. we eventually found it and went in, it was 7.30pm and the bar was booked for 9.30pm, so we sat down and killed some time with idle chit chat, and me sucking back the water and juice as i was still dehydrated. it didnt help that she was a pom and kept asking if i wanted to order a beer! she gave me the low-down on all the gossip on ppl i had seen at the seminar etc etc, oh yeah nearly everyone here is like 29 or over, so i am a youngin again. hey guess jeanettes age and you win a prize!

we left the bar and went to another gaijin bar where the beers are only 300yen instead of 450, there were these 2 americans in there who had already pulled a girl each, and they looked like losers (we can smell our own) Jeanette told me the funniest thing since i have been here, she said you might have been insignificant back in your home country, but here you are a God, and it tends to overinflate your egos, like you ARE indeed someone special. that theory was backed up by the tossers with the girls and the losers at the seminars. she said that its a losers paradise here, the sad thing is that i agree, but here i am in Japan! i think she meant her statement in the fact how easy it is to pull a chick here, as the 1st thing any girl asks me is if i am single, even the school girls, like that will work out! (we can only pray that they ammend that law)

so it was finally time to head to Tapas bar. Jeanette left to go home, and i wandered around again....alone. i met this pom called oliver who was getting a breather from the crowd inside, i asked him if there was still a cover charge being taken, he was a bit too drunk to answer, so we descended the stairs. the scene was common of all JET parties i have seen in Japan so far, the poms at the bar sculling their pints back, the americans trying to get jiggy with it on the dance floor (i think white man cant jump applies to dancing as well) and the canadians hanging out for their beloved weed, the cliques here are amazing, if you try and talk to someone outside of your countries boundaries then you are stared at (maybe i should zip my fly up as well) so i fluttered around chatting to Rosie (kiwi) and a few others i shared my flight from Tokyo to Kumamoto with. i was having an alright time (who would admit they sat in the toilet the whole night crying for their mummy?) and thought if i drank a bit more it could become even funnier (recipe for disaster) but i couldnt look like a pom, so i did the old 'drink a little bit at a time' trick. when i went up for my next drink there was this Yank at the bar, and i asked how his night was going and he said 'im sooooo wasted' i was like 'cheers mate' and he then remarked on how Kiwis can handle their booze, yeah, i didnt earn the name '2 can man' for nothing back in N.Z. thats how fucked these ppl are here. but oh well. i left when the place closed (i guess i was having more and more fun) and got to bed at 4am, woke up at 8.30am for the start of my seminars. i actually thought they were pretty good, although i didnt have anything to compare them with, as i wagged all of the Tokyo ones. they are cunning here, they made a new rule that after each seminar you had to collect a ticket which was proof that you attended, you would then give these to your supervisor back in your area(cunning lot they are) so after my 2nd seminar i stole 2 tickets so i could have a longer lunch (so whos smarter now?)

That night we had our beer garden party, i was hanging out with Laura and Rob (Yanks) so we got there late, laura negotiated a discount rate of 2000yen instead of the proposed 3000, she told them that we didnt have a fair chance to get properly pissed due to the time constraints, we took our seats opposite to everyone else (due to our lateness) and no one bothered to tell us that they werent serving food to our area (great mate, just great) Laura went off and started scrounging food for us to eat (sweetas) but then we got this huge platter brought out to us by the waiter, we were so stoked, its amazing how many new friends you have when there is food (it reminds me of primary school again, with all the scabs) we found out later that Jeanette the pom hooked us up with the platter, it pays not to piss everyone off (i get wiser as i get older)

After drinking back the beers all the JETs started to mingle, i always single out the Aussie chicks, as they are easy targets. i always say that i come from sydney or some outback area, and try start up the converstaion, 'gidday maaaaate'. once they figure me out (not hard to do) i start to get the usual shit directed at me, 'we have the world cup' 'WE started making pavalova' 'weetbix is ours' alsorts like that, i was trying to figure out where this chick was in kyushu (our island) and i went Nrth-Never East-Eat Sth-Soggy Wst-Weetbix, and she was like 'thats australian! we do that' i was like whatever! they are probably the coolest people here though, you can actually talk to them and vice versa, not like the yanks, i told this chick that KFC only gave me 5 chips in my meal, and i drew a blank face, then she clicked and said 'oh, you mean french fries!!!!!' i was like 'no, read my lips, i said chips'.

As the party wore on, i had over 3 beers, so i was obligated to hang out with the poms, my mate Dan (he is 7 feet tall) was pretty drunk, when we all were leaving some japanese waiters were saying something in japanese (as they do) and we yelled 'arghblahshesmsajhmeshita' which was supposed to be japanese for something, but it came out all wrong because we're drunk. we got some gasps from the straight laced JETs (avoid them, they are here for honourable reasons) as we headed towards the pub there are these ppl who stand on the street handing out fliers, Dan went up and got some and we started to hand them out to ppl walking past (hows that for building international relations?) again we got some stares from the honourable JETs, much to everyones relief we got to the pub where there was cheap alcohol (godsend) the place was rocking and the aussie chick was there with her canadian mate who asked if i could do 'that little dance?' i guessed that she meant the Haka, i tried to tell her that it wasnt 'a little dance' but she couldnt really comprehend, i didnt want to look all unco doing it while drunk (not that being drunk would save me) so i politely declined the bar continued to play tunes untill we left at 3.30am,

then we had to do our language classes that day at the YMCA, i asked where i check in and was politely told that they did not offer accomodation (fuk you Iihoshi) so the head supervisor who was with us told me that i should go back to my village after the language class finishes. After the classes finished i headed into the city to do some last minute shopping, I saw the aussie chick that i was giving shit to the night before, she was with the canadian. we were in a department store and they were like 'hey kiwi' i started teasing her about coming from a convict colony, and i started yelling for store security as she probably has stolen some stuff (for those who know me, you know i did it) the canadian chick told me 'i thought you were being rude last night cause you were drunk' i was like 'well you were wrong' Aussie VS. Kiwis are like kissing cousins, minus the kissing, after we swapped email addys i said goodbye and headed to another store where i was faced with my biggest decision while in japan, to buy a PSX2 or to eat for the next 2 weeks, hence i have been starving for food lately, but at least i can listen to my music! with my new purchase i headed back to my car and the long journey back to Seiwa.

p.s just to let you know i managed to get some money out of a ATM so i am eating again.

With regards,

Greg Lambert

9-1 Hotokehara, Seiwa-Mura

Kamimashiki-gun, Kumamoto-ken

861-3835

Japan.