Away from it all! Ahhhhhh I wish!
No, actually running every morning for about a week now! Quite proud of my lazy self, I find running the best form of exercise for a few reasons: 1- You can't get out of it, once you've run somewhere you HAVE to run back, or at least walk to where you started from. 2- If you keep going and don't be lazy and stop (like I often do) you get a warm tingly glow and your pudgy bits go all red and glowy-like meaning blood is pumping to all sorts of cellulite ridden areas! and 3- runner's high. Best feeling in the world (after all illegal activities in a public place have been eliminated of course).
I usually go to my local pond and run around a few times like a big lumbering, sweaty gaijin giant from a story book, but in preparation for the 10km run in November I'm going to have to get my arse into gear and start running to the pond instead of cycling and then add in some runs up and down the hills that keep the lovely eye candy-ish army base boys in such fine shape. Am dreading the run a bit as just don't have that much time to run anymore and my mum and sister are coming to Japan next week which will mean my beer consumption will go up by about 400% and we'll be eating all sorts of goodies to the tune of yakiniku and kushi-katsu and lots of other bad crap that my family crave from Japan!
Not sure how the visit will go, I've never had them come stay and not had some kind of argument with them, but this time they're coming together, not sure how that will work... Although I think it will be a good thing, they can at least keep each other (and Ash) entertained so I don't feel so guilty about working. Plus I'm going to make my job a bit easier by putting them to work by chatting with my adult students over tea or some shit. Students will get natives that speak 0 Japanese and I can sit back, translate where neccessary and nurse my inevitable hang over from too much beer and yakiniku.
Ryota is being kicked out and will sleep at the in-laws place for the 2 weeks that they're here which is a big relief, my sister and mum are total night owls where as we're generally in bed by 9:30pm so this will eliminate the sleeping/noise issues, I hope. Although due to dirt path situation Ryota will probably still be able to hear them nattering from Grandma's house! And totally not kidding...
I've warned mum about the dog fucker fight, she told me to make up with her before she gets here as she wants her nails done. Thanks for your support there Ma!
Right, off to fill a small child's mind with English words, topic this week. Veggies! Really, how can I make a cucumber that exciting though...?
Wednesday, 29 September 2010
Tuesday, 28 September 2010
IthinkI'mturningJapaneseIthinkI'mturningJapanese...
No, I actually really do think so...
2) I've given in to my fashion instincts and just buy Japanese clothes now.
3) I worry about my husband.
4) I'm starting to believe that covering your shoulders may have something to do with catching a cold.
5) I speak Japanese in my sleep.
It's now been a week since the great dog fucker battle of 2010 and the icy awkwardness is not going away, but not getting any worse either. I've been too busy to really care anyway which is nice. Even though the air was supposed to have been cleared I fear another battle will be on the cards some time in the future. I don't have a lesson with nosey boss until next Monday too so hopefully she won't say anything. This whole episode is convincing me more and more to buy FIL's house if he gets transferred for his job, I really want to get away from the dirt path politics...
Grandma has been in bed for the last two days, I hope she's OK, poor old duck has a dodgy ticker and as much as she can be annoying, wouldn't want her to cark it or anything, who would remind me what rubbish day it was!? But really, I'd be really upset if anything was to happen to her, she's the backbone of Ryota's dysfunctional, unstable little family, it would really suck if she died...
I hope her 'shindoi-ness' wasn't my fault, I may have shocked her by leaving my washing out in the rain the other day, if it was the futons she definitely would have had a heart attack though!
Top 5 reasons why I'm slowly but surely turning Japanese...
1) I have an appetite for rice.
I came home last night and swore I could smell fresh, hot, buttery, salty popcorn. I was in drooly, Homer-Simpson-like heaven until I realised it was the smell of the rice I'd put on earlier. Rice!? It's bland, gloopy and ...it's just rice!
2) I've given in to my fashion instincts and just buy Japanese clothes now.
Considering Japanese clothes fall into three categories for me this is a pretty big step. There's the cutesy, gypsy look that young skinny Japanese girls do so well, the slutty short skirt-boots combo which looks hot on J-girls but seems to just make gaijin girls look slutty, and finally the 'Obachan' look that makes a 20-something gaijin girl look like a 40-something Japanese housewife. I seem to be able to mix these looks and find some things that appeal to me, although I'm leaning towards the gypsy look as it covers my wobbly bits pretty well...
3) I worry about my husband.
As in, I get his coffee for him as soon as he gets home, I lay out his clothes and towel for his shower, I see him off in the morning with his packed lunch. Since when did I become a concerned wife!? Ash is next, before long I'll be running to his school because he forgot his umbrella or something. This is another post in itself lurking...
4) I'm starting to believe that covering your shoulders may have something to do with catching a cold.
I never believed this one, I'm a tank top girl, even in winter, I rarely wear anything other than a tank top with a jacket over the top. (Errrr hello, Japanese trains/building/anywhere inside= fucking sauna!) But I have now had two colds in the space of about two weeks. The Japanese angel on my shoulder keeps whispering "Put a jumper on...." in my ear, while the gaijin devil on the other side is saying "Fuck that J-angel! Bastard shoulders having nothing to do with having a cold you big twat!"
5) I speak Japanese in my sleep.
I should be happy about this one, language may finally be filtering through all the dead brain cells and alcohol haze and be sinking in! Apparently the last few nights I've been laughing in my sleep and saying totally fucking random things in Japanese like, "かぼちゃちょうだい！(Give me the pumpkin)" and "やっぱりな！(Like I thought!)"
It's now been a week since the great dog fucker battle of 2010 and the icy awkwardness is not going away, but not getting any worse either. I've been too busy to really care anyway which is nice. Even though the air was supposed to have been cleared I fear another battle will be on the cards some time in the future. I don't have a lesson with nosey boss until next Monday too so hopefully she won't say anything. This whole episode is convincing me more and more to buy FIL's house if he gets transferred for his job, I really want to get away from the dirt path politics...
Grandma has been in bed for the last two days, I hope she's OK, poor old duck has a dodgy ticker and as much as she can be annoying, wouldn't want her to cark it or anything, who would remind me what rubbish day it was!? But really, I'd be really upset if anything was to happen to her, she's the backbone of Ryota's dysfunctional, unstable little family, it would really suck if she died...
I hope her 'shindoi-ness' wasn't my fault, I may have shocked her by leaving my washing out in the rain the other day, if it was the futons she definitely would have had a heart attack though!
Thursday, 23 September 2010
The battle story!
First of all, thanks for all the lurker comments, who knew I could have lurkers!? Perhaps I should watch my mouth a bit now I know other people are reading... Nah, never going to happen. And sorry for the delay, this will be disjointed and not a good account of what happened I feel!
OK. Where do I start...
Tuesday night at the school-
Nosey fucker (AKA SIL's boss) had a lesson booked in at 5pm. I knew SIL would probably come with her as she had worked that day and boss tries to work her lessons in the same day so she can give SIL a lift home. So they rocked up at about 5 and boss says, "コリイイイイン！！！ るるとケンカしてるの？？ (Corrrrriiiiiiiinnnnnnneeeeee! Are you fighting with the dog fucker??)" She literally said this when they were still outside the school, she opened the door and went straight into it. My first reaction was shock, then embarrassment. We had to get through a whole lesson and I really did not want to talk about it, especially with SIL's boss of all people! I honestly had no idea what to do so I just laughed and tried to make light of the situation. SIL would later bring this up and grill me as to why I thought the whole situation was funny! Silly bitch.
Anyway, after I laughed and played dumb on the fight interrogation questions, SIL had a stormy look on her face and didn't say much at all. Boss then decided that we definitely needed to talk about it all and asked if we had plans at 6pm when the lesson was done. I said I didn't have plans but actually I had to make dinner, give Ash a bath, and all the other madness that goes on around 6pm, but as I was backed into a corner like a rat I couldn't really get out of it. SIL also agreed and said she would come to the school at 6. Which was just shit because I was dreading the confrontation the whole lesson and not really listening to the boss.
So the lesson finished, nosey fucker boss looked up and down the road as she was leaving to try and see SIL, I think she actually wanted to be there for some of the proceedings, and you know, since she knew anyway, I would have actually liked someone else there!
A few minutes later, SIL rocks up and sits down and I had noooooo fucking clue how it was going to go, I'm really not big on the confrontational fights, especially not with someone as childish as her and definitely not in a language other than my own! But... I decided that I should give it a crack anyway, just to see if I could do it. So she started with the whole "You insulted Kimutaku, you shouldn't say bad things about people that other people like!" thing and I seriously just let fly then, I told her to listen to how stupid she sounded that she was STILL going on bout fucking Kimutaku. She said that she would use a different example and gave insulting family, which was bullshit because that wasn't what the fight was about in the first place! But she said for 2 years she'd always thought I'd always said too much about everything. Well fuck me with a feather, she's been bottling these feelings for 2 years!? This is the girl who will go on racist rants about Chinese and Korean and Indian people with not a care in the world that it offends me. The girl who insults her own father and then says I say too much if i make a joke about him looking like an alien in a photo (he fucking did look like an alien as well!). I was bemused... bewildered... shocked... fucking pissed by this point and knew there was not going to be any easy end to the argument because we were never going to agree.
I didn't get that pissed until she started being condescending though. When I was getting towards the end of my rope with all the arguing and about to leave the school, she got panicky and pissed because she knew if we went home Ryota would totally stand up for me and be able to tell her what an absolute fucking mental case she was. She also got condescending saying things like "例えばわかる？？(Do you know what 'example' means??)" So it was at that point that I literally threw her out of the school, she didn't want to leave but I fucking got pissed that she was arguing while I had the door open to my business so I hissed (literally) in English to "get the fuck out. NOW!" I then slammed the shutter down and got on my bike as she was calling her Mum from outside the school...
Tuesday night at home-
Poor Ryota was totally caught unawares when I got home, I didn't know how far behind me SIL was so I rushed into the house and told him we'd just had a big argument and he would need to translate/mediate for us because it was nowhere near done. He sighed and braced himself as she came into our house clutching the fucking dog. I then told him to tell her to start from the beginning so I totally understood. (but really I wanted Ryota to hear the whole story and give her a piece of his mind) And a piece (a few pieces actually!) he gave her indeed. He stopped translating half way through to say this to her (in Japanese but I think this is a pretty good translation):
"What the fuck are you going on about, seriously?? Are you mentally ill?? Can you hear yourself?? Why are you causing shit about nothing?? You need to get a job, a life, some friends who will call you out for being such a twat. Yo need some life experience. Get out of the house or you'll never know how the real world works. Go to another country. You have the life experience of a 4 year old."
There were other bits and pieces but this was the gist of it. She started crying at this point, probably because she knew it was all true. It was so much better having Ryota there, he could say everything I couldn't in Japanese. He asked her if it wasn't just the Kimutaku thing then what was it? and she answered that she doesn't think I should make jokes/comments about their family. She gave an example of MIL falling over, (she does it quite frequently) that I shouldn't laugh or say she's a dickhead or anything like that. Ryota gave the best response, he asked her if it was strange if he or BIL made comments like that and she said "no, of course not." This is where Ryota got really fucking angry and told her that I was family too, I wasn't to be treated any differently. If she couldn't accept me as part of their family (as everyone else has) then it was her problem, not ours.
I got pretty fired up (and a little bit upset) at that point then, possibly jumping to conclusions but wanted to get my racism protest in anyway so I asked her if it was because I was foreign, she hated other foreigners, maybe she was racist towards me? She denied, but I'm glad I got it in anyway. I have to wonder how different the situation would be if I was Japanese...
It then got down to the nitty gritty, that she didn't see me as an 'onechan' (big sister). I still think this is her problem not mine and sorry but I'll be fucked if I'm going to try and change the way I am for her, she's really just not worth it. I'd rather fucking pay for my nails. She brought the nails up as well, and also that she looks after Ash a lot, and it's true, I told her I really appreciate it but if it's a chore then I'll no longer ask her for favours. Damn I just remembered that we used to pay her to babysit, should have brought that up!! I will DEFINITELY NOT be asking her to do my nails anymore, I'd rather pay than sit with an hour with her. And Ash, well it's inevitable as long as I'm working and we're living so close that she will end up looking after him but I want to limit that to as little as possible too.
This 'translation/ Ryota getting angry/translation response' pattern went on for at least 2 and a half hours with us really not getting anywhere because I could just not see her point or any solution to the whole situation. The best I could do was tell her I will try to hold my tongue from now on, but for me, this means I won't say anything at all, I'd rather keep my fat foreign mouth shut than think about what I'm saying for every word.
I'm still avoiding the in-laws house as much as possible, definitely not keen on going for dinners or whatever anymore. I managed to keep the tears back right until the very end but she started saying that MIL had agreed with her that I always 'say too much' and also slipped a comment in that MIL's sister had also agreed with her. This is when I really felt ganged up on, thank god Ryota was on my side (for the most part). I honestly think she was lying but that little seed of doubt was planted and I won't be able to get it out of my head that the whole family thinks I'm an obnoxious foreigner who doesn't know when to hold her tongue. MIL sent me a mail apologising for SIL and saying that I should feel free to say anything I want but still... Fuck me, imagine if Ryota had married an outspoken American or something!! (hehe sorry my beautiful American friends...) But do you know what I mean?? As far as gaijin go, I'm seriously tame!
Things are supposed to be normal again, but they're not. I just don't want anything to do with her. I feel sorry for Ryota, I know how hard it is to be torn between your own family and your partner, but I feel like he really was fair during the whole thing. He called me out when I got all dramatic and started crying and saying "everyone hates me!!!!" And fair play, no need for girly drama on top of everything else.
I know there is going to be more to this, it was far too big of an episode to be all Mary fucking sunshine from now on. Sorry, reading over this I haven't explained it very well, but it was like this times about 50 with the anger and screaming and shouting.
I'll keep you posted!
OK. Where do I start...
Tuesday night at the school-
Nosey fucker (AKA SIL's boss) had a lesson booked in at 5pm. I knew SIL would probably come with her as she had worked that day and boss tries to work her lessons in the same day so she can give SIL a lift home. So they rocked up at about 5 and boss says, "コリイイイイン！！！ るるとケンカしてるの？？ (Corrrrriiiiiiiinnnnnnneeeeee! Are you fighting with the dog fucker??)" She literally said this when they were still outside the school, she opened the door and went straight into it. My first reaction was shock, then embarrassment. We had to get through a whole lesson and I really did not want to talk about it, especially with SIL's boss of all people! I honestly had no idea what to do so I just laughed and tried to make light of the situation. SIL would later bring this up and grill me as to why I thought the whole situation was funny! Silly bitch.
Anyway, after I laughed and played dumb on the fight interrogation questions, SIL had a stormy look on her face and didn't say much at all. Boss then decided that we definitely needed to talk about it all and asked if we had plans at 6pm when the lesson was done. I said I didn't have plans but actually I had to make dinner, give Ash a bath, and all the other madness that goes on around 6pm, but as I was backed into a corner like a rat I couldn't really get out of it. SIL also agreed and said she would come to the school at 6. Which was just shit because I was dreading the confrontation the whole lesson and not really listening to the boss.
So the lesson finished, nosey fucker boss looked up and down the road as she was leaving to try and see SIL, I think she actually wanted to be there for some of the proceedings, and you know, since she knew anyway, I would have actually liked someone else there!
A few minutes later, SIL rocks up and sits down and I had noooooo fucking clue how it was going to go, I'm really not big on the confrontational fights, especially not with someone as childish as her and definitely not in a language other than my own! But... I decided that I should give it a crack anyway, just to see if I could do it. So she started with the whole "You insulted Kimutaku, you shouldn't say bad things about people that other people like!" thing and I seriously just let fly then, I told her to listen to how stupid she sounded that she was STILL going on bout fucking Kimutaku. She said that she would use a different example and gave insulting family, which was bullshit because that wasn't what the fight was about in the first place! But she said for 2 years she'd always thought I'd always said too much about everything. Well fuck me with a feather, she's been bottling these feelings for 2 years!? This is the girl who will go on racist rants about Chinese and Korean and Indian people with not a care in the world that it offends me. The girl who insults her own father and then says I say too much if i make a joke about him looking like an alien in a photo (he fucking did look like an alien as well!). I was bemused... bewildered... shocked... fucking pissed by this point and knew there was not going to be any easy end to the argument because we were never going to agree.
I didn't get that pissed until she started being condescending though. When I was getting towards the end of my rope with all the arguing and about to leave the school, she got panicky and pissed because she knew if we went home Ryota would totally stand up for me and be able to tell her what an absolute fucking mental case she was. She also got condescending saying things like "例えばわかる？？(Do you know what 'example' means??)" So it was at that point that I literally threw her out of the school, she didn't want to leave but I fucking got pissed that she was arguing while I had the door open to my business so I hissed (literally) in English to "get the fuck out. NOW!" I then slammed the shutter down and got on my bike as she was calling her Mum from outside the school...
Tuesday night at home-
Poor Ryota was totally caught unawares when I got home, I didn't know how far behind me SIL was so I rushed into the house and told him we'd just had a big argument and he would need to translate/mediate for us because it was nowhere near done. He sighed and braced himself as she came into our house clutching the fucking dog. I then told him to tell her to start from the beginning so I totally understood. (but really I wanted Ryota to hear the whole story and give her a piece of his mind) And a piece (a few pieces actually!) he gave her indeed. He stopped translating half way through to say this to her (in Japanese but I think this is a pretty good translation):
"What the fuck are you going on about, seriously?? Are you mentally ill?? Can you hear yourself?? Why are you causing shit about nothing?? You need to get a job, a life, some friends who will call you out for being such a twat. Yo need some life experience. Get out of the house or you'll never know how the real world works. Go to another country. You have the life experience of a 4 year old."
There were other bits and pieces but this was the gist of it. She started crying at this point, probably because she knew it was all true. It was so much better having Ryota there, he could say everything I couldn't in Japanese. He asked her if it wasn't just the Kimutaku thing then what was it? and she answered that she doesn't think I should make jokes/comments about their family. She gave an example of MIL falling over, (she does it quite frequently) that I shouldn't laugh or say she's a dickhead or anything like that. Ryota gave the best response, he asked her if it was strange if he or BIL made comments like that and she said "no, of course not." This is where Ryota got really fucking angry and told her that I was family too, I wasn't to be treated any differently. If she couldn't accept me as part of their family (as everyone else has) then it was her problem, not ours.
I got pretty fired up (and a little bit upset) at that point then, possibly jumping to conclusions but wanted to get my racism protest in anyway so I asked her if it was because I was foreign, she hated other foreigners, maybe she was racist towards me? She denied, but I'm glad I got it in anyway. I have to wonder how different the situation would be if I was Japanese...
It then got down to the nitty gritty, that she didn't see me as an 'onechan' (big sister). I still think this is her problem not mine and sorry but I'll be fucked if I'm going to try and change the way I am for her, she's really just not worth it. I'd rather fucking pay for my nails. She brought the nails up as well, and also that she looks after Ash a lot, and it's true, I told her I really appreciate it but if it's a chore then I'll no longer ask her for favours. Damn I just remembered that we used to pay her to babysit, should have brought that up!! I will DEFINITELY NOT be asking her to do my nails anymore, I'd rather pay than sit with an hour with her. And Ash, well it's inevitable as long as I'm working and we're living so close that she will end up looking after him but I want to limit that to as little as possible too.
This 'translation/ Ryota getting angry/translation response' pattern went on for at least 2 and a half hours with us really not getting anywhere because I could just not see her point or any solution to the whole situation. The best I could do was tell her I will try to hold my tongue from now on, but for me, this means I won't say anything at all, I'd rather keep my fat foreign mouth shut than think about what I'm saying for every word.
I'm still avoiding the in-laws house as much as possible, definitely not keen on going for dinners or whatever anymore. I managed to keep the tears back right until the very end but she started saying that MIL had agreed with her that I always 'say too much' and also slipped a comment in that MIL's sister had also agreed with her. This is when I really felt ganged up on, thank god Ryota was on my side (for the most part). I honestly think she was lying but that little seed of doubt was planted and I won't be able to get it out of my head that the whole family thinks I'm an obnoxious foreigner who doesn't know when to hold her tongue. MIL sent me a mail apologising for SIL and saying that I should feel free to say anything I want but still... Fuck me, imagine if Ryota had married an outspoken American or something!! (hehe sorry my beautiful American friends...) But do you know what I mean?? As far as gaijin go, I'm seriously tame!
Things are supposed to be normal again, but they're not. I just don't want anything to do with her. I feel sorry for Ryota, I know how hard it is to be torn between your own family and your partner, but I feel like he really was fair during the whole thing. He called me out when I got all dramatic and started crying and saying "everyone hates me!!!!" And fair play, no need for girly drama on top of everything else.
I know there is going to be more to this, it was far too big of an episode to be all Mary fucking sunshine from now on. Sorry, reading over this I haven't explained it very well, but it was like this times about 50 with the anger and screaming and shouting.
I'll keep you posted!
Wednesday, 22 September 2010
Bang bang
Fucking fireworks last night!
I'm too exhausted from it all to write about it now, but may do so later otherwise I might forget the nitty gritty little details. But I'll say this: There was shouting (both), the words cunt, fucking mental and FUUUUUCCCCCKKKK!!!! were used a lot (me), tears (her), shouting (both), screaming (both), slamming of doors (me- it's my thing), phone calls (her, fucking mummy's girl), racism accusations came out (me), and... it went on for 3 FUCKING HOURS!!! Hence the exhaustion, cause you know, some of us have a family and a full time job to do in between dealing with SIL's with the mental capacity of a small, retarded ant.
Fuck me, it was bad. But I definitely got across what I wanted to say, some of it was filtered through Ryochan but man it felt good to tell her what I really thought of her after 2 years of gaman.
Who knows what's going to happen from now on, Ryota is in favour of moving house, but we'll see! Stay tuned for the full story, sorry to be such a blog-cock tease!!
I'm too exhausted from it all to write about it now, but may do so later otherwise I might forget the nitty gritty little details. But I'll say this: There was shouting (both), the words cunt, fucking mental and FUUUUUCCCCCKKKK!!!! were used a lot (me), tears (her), shouting (both), screaming (both), slamming of doors (me- it's my thing), phone calls (her, fucking mummy's girl), racism accusations came out (me), and... it went on for 3 FUCKING HOURS!!! Hence the exhaustion, cause you know, some of us have a family and a full time job to do in between dealing with SIL's with the mental capacity of a small, retarded ant.
Fuck me, it was bad. But I definitely got across what I wanted to say, some of it was filtered through Ryochan but man it felt good to tell her what I really thought of her after 2 years of gaman.
Who knows what's going to happen from now on, Ryota is in favour of moving house, but we'll see! Stay tuned for the full story, sorry to be such a blog-cock tease!!
Monday, 20 September 2010
Bloody vodka! (I love you...)
I have an incredible love hate relationship going with vodka, I love it for many reasons: It get's you fucked up, it doesn't taste too horrible when mixed appropriately, and it leaves me with basically no hangover. Sounds like the perfect alcoholic beverage to have an affair with right!?
There is one thing that means vodka and I may have to break up permanently though, vodka makes me cry. Not just like sniff sniff, tear tear, I'm talking howling, unstoppable, heart wrenching crying. Over anything and everything. The even more annoying thing is, the other night as I was consuming a rather large green cup of vodka on the rocks at Sassymoo's place, I thought to myself and said to Ryochan, "I bet this is going to make me cry later..." I know it, but I can't stop it! I wasn't sad on the actual night, quite the opposite, lovely BBQ with good friends and conversation (mainly centred around being gay and boobs incidentally...), Ash was basically good the whole night, fuck, we even had Baskin Robbins ice cream cake, which is enough to make me wee a little bit in excitement usually, but as soon as we got home, the thinking and the bawling started. I actually hid my phone in the depths of my futon to stop myself emotional texting. Ryota was more than bemused despite my earlier warnings, and told me to think of all the happy things in my life like, and I quote his words: "Errr like Ash, and ummmm, like you're metcha kutcha good-looking husband....ummm, yeah, that's more than enough!" Way to comfort a girl there twat features.
But that was what I was trying to explain to him as well, it was pure vodka talking (crying?), I can honestly 100% say that if I hadn't drank vodka I would have gone to sleep with a big happy grin on my face. Weird! I guess it's just one of those things, will have to avoid vodka for a while to prevent this phenomenon, but the Russian bitch is oh soooo tempting!
Will have to refrain from drinking altogether for a while anyway as I'm doing a run in November and I know myself, drinking= no running the next day (yesterday prime example!) and I can do without the jiggling beer gut as I drag my already lardy and sizeable rump over the finish line!
In other news, Ryota has been in the dog house a bit due to surfing related incidents. Saturday was definitely a punishable offence, not hanging offence, but punishable for sure. He left at 5am and is usually back by lunchtime, a very extended flexible use of the word lunch time mind you, but usually home by about 2 or 3 in time to have a nap with Ash so I can get the million and one things I have to do done. On Saturday there was no word though, (he usually calls me when he's leaving so I get two hours warning) I wasn't that concerned, I mean they're thoughtless boys, why would they call. But when it got to 4pm and there was still no word I got a bit worried and had the whole 'irrational scenario flashes.' i.e. One of them had drowned, they'd had a car accident etc. I'd sent a mail in the afternoon asking where he was but still lovey dovey, the next was a pissed off mail complete with little red face smiley (frowny?) and finally I thought if he had actually been eaten by a shark and they found his phone with a bitchy mail from his wife on it I'd look bad so the last message was a 'worried' one. I was teaching from 4pm but between lessons he called me and told me in an out-of-breath voice that he was sorry but the waves were "so fucking good!" I couldn't really be angry then because I was relieved and happy he'd at least had fun. Nothing pisses me off more than him blowing off family time to surf only to come home and bitch about the waves, don't wanna hear it!
Then he went surfing again on Monday (public holiday), outwardly I was pissed but inside I was secretly a teeny bit happy, one less body lounging around my house and messing shit up. He was also home at a reasonable hour so didn't turn out too bad. The waves were apparently better than sex drugs and rock and roll put together according to him as well so all parties were very relaxed and happy after the long weekend!
OK- Just had a bizarre incident with SIL's boss, SIL apparently told her we were fighting when she was at work and now her boss wants to get us talking so has set up a meeting for us that is supposed to happen at 6pm, I'm too scared to go home almost! Don't want a confrontation in a language other than my own!! Should I be pissed that she told her boss (my student)?? What should I say?? Should I try and be a hard cunt or just let it go??? HELP ME!!! OK, get ready for a report tomorrow, if nothing else I'm sure she'll make a racist comment or two.
There is one thing that means vodka and I may have to break up permanently though, vodka makes me cry. Not just like sniff sniff, tear tear, I'm talking howling, unstoppable, heart wrenching crying. Over anything and everything. The even more annoying thing is, the other night as I was consuming a rather large green cup of vodka on the rocks at Sassymoo's place, I thought to myself and said to Ryochan, "I bet this is going to make me cry later..." I know it, but I can't stop it! I wasn't sad on the actual night, quite the opposite, lovely BBQ with good friends and conversation (mainly centred around being gay and boobs incidentally...), Ash was basically good the whole night, fuck, we even had Baskin Robbins ice cream cake, which is enough to make me wee a little bit in excitement usually, but as soon as we got home, the thinking and the bawling started. I actually hid my phone in the depths of my futon to stop myself emotional texting. Ryota was more than bemused despite my earlier warnings, and told me to think of all the happy things in my life like, and I quote his words: "Errr like Ash, and ummmm, like you're metcha kutcha good-looking husband....ummm, yeah, that's more than enough!" Way to comfort a girl there twat features.
But that was what I was trying to explain to him as well, it was pure vodka talking (crying?), I can honestly 100% say that if I hadn't drank vodka I would have gone to sleep with a big happy grin on my face. Weird! I guess it's just one of those things, will have to avoid vodka for a while to prevent this phenomenon, but the Russian bitch is oh soooo tempting!
Will have to refrain from drinking altogether for a while anyway as I'm doing a run in November and I know myself, drinking= no running the next day (yesterday prime example!) and I can do without the jiggling beer gut as I drag my already lardy and sizeable rump over the finish line!
In other news, Ryota has been in the dog house a bit due to surfing related incidents. Saturday was definitely a punishable offence, not hanging offence, but punishable for sure. He left at 5am and is usually back by lunchtime, a very extended flexible use of the word lunch time mind you, but usually home by about 2 or 3 in time to have a nap with Ash so I can get the million and one things I have to do done. On Saturday there was no word though, (he usually calls me when he's leaving so I get two hours warning) I wasn't that concerned, I mean they're thoughtless boys, why would they call. But when it got to 4pm and there was still no word I got a bit worried and had the whole 'irrational scenario flashes.' i.e. One of them had drowned, they'd had a car accident etc. I'd sent a mail in the afternoon asking where he was but still lovey dovey, the next was a pissed off mail complete with little red face smiley (frowny?) and finally I thought if he had actually been eaten by a shark and they found his phone with a bitchy mail from his wife on it I'd look bad so the last message was a 'worried' one. I was teaching from 4pm but between lessons he called me and told me in an out-of-breath voice that he was sorry but the waves were "so fucking good!" I couldn't really be angry then because I was relieved and happy he'd at least had fun. Nothing pisses me off more than him blowing off family time to surf only to come home and bitch about the waves, don't wanna hear it!
Then he went surfing again on Monday (public holiday), outwardly I was pissed but inside I was secretly a teeny bit happy, one less body lounging around my house and messing shit up. He was also home at a reasonable hour so didn't turn out too bad. The waves were apparently better than sex drugs and rock and roll put together according to him as well so all parties were very relaxed and happy after the long weekend!
OK- Just had a bizarre incident with SIL's boss, SIL apparently told her we were fighting when she was at work and now her boss wants to get us talking so has set up a meeting for us that is supposed to happen at 6pm, I'm too scared to go home almost! Don't want a confrontation in a language other than my own!! Should I be pissed that she told her boss (my student)?? What should I say?? Should I try and be a hard cunt or just let it go??? HELP ME!!! OK, get ready for a report tomorrow, if nothing else I'm sure she'll make a racist comment or two.
Thursday, 16 September 2010
Leave me and my Pussy alone!
No, it's not what you think, I've just seen way too many episodes of 'Are you being served?' in my time.
Although this thought actually went through my head this morning along with "Piss off you old biddies, get a fucking life!!" and similar things with lots of obscenities.
I feel like half my life is spent in the genkan these days, either seeing Ryota off for work like the good little wifey that I am, fishing Ash out of there when he's sitting in the dusty pool of shoes with odd slippers on both his feet, and finally, the bloody cat that I, for some reason fought to keep, when she's darting out the door or literally hanging off my shirt wanting to go outside. I've consulted with Dr Google and he assures me, as I suspected, young cats want to go outside. Apparently they need to see/smell/piss on the big bad world for themselves, and fair play to them, being couped up in a house, let alone a Japanese shoe-box type house would drive anyone bonkers (just ask SIL). On an amusing side note, before I consulted Dr Google I asked Ryota his thoughts and he said to me: "She must be horny, she wants to let's get it on!" Gotta love dirty talk and karoke English creeping into your everyday conversations.
So I decided that she could go outside for a bit everyday, she's used to us now, has pissed on enough of our furniture to know this is her home and she never goes far anyway, so problem solved, right!?
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong!! Why is this completely sane idea wrong?? Because I live in Japan, on a dirt path, surrounded by old women who have spent their whole lives being old women (even when they looked like young women) with nothing better to do than get all up in everyone else's business.
The first incident was yesterday morning. We were all getting ready for the day when the cat darted out the door as I was putting the washing on, and instead of doing my usual mad dash down the side of the house in my bra, jeans and half made-up face to catch her, I decided she could stay outside for the few minutes until we all left. Sensible gaijin idea for the day- done! Just as I'd got my other eye mascara-ed but before I had a top on, I heard the wailing from cat-fucker next door: "Vineeeeggggaaaaarrr arrrrroooooowwww saaaaaannnn!!!!!" I ignored the first one but she continued until Ryota shouted at me from the toilet, (in English so she couldn't understand thank god!) "Corinne, the weird cat lady from next door wants you!!" I managed to just get my top on and went outside to see what she wanted, she then gave me a lecture on why cats should stay inside and that I shouldn't let her out. I wanted to tell her to get bent but the memory of me destroying her pot plant was still lurking in my mind so I played nice and thanked her graciously for her infinite wisdom (my hot monk would have been so proud of me!)
The next incident was this morning, I let the cat out for a bit of a romp around (although I really shouldn't let her romp too much, she might end up getting knocked up like her owner did! Must get her fixed...) while I did some housewifey type jobs but just as I had flopped down with a coffee and a bit of trashy TV, the front door gara gara's it's way open and suddenly an entourage of old women shuffled into my genkan. Of course they all had to come in when it looked like the lazy gaijin never does any housework, it's lucky it's not that hot anymore and I wasn't in my undies or something! Grandma then proudly held up the cat and said "Oiii, I found the damn cat, why don't you get off your gaijin arse and keep her inside!!" (I really should stop with the over-exaggerated grandma translations...) I then informed her that I knew she was outside, I'd let her out for a few minutes. Cat shagger then chimed in with "Ohhh, silly girl, I told you not to do that!" Then old lady from other side also said "I got her from near my house, she was crying you know!!" I told them that we'd decided to let her out for a bit each day and they all seriously reacted like I'd decided to poke her with hot coals for a bit each day, the shocked old wrinkly faces, the extended "eehhhhhhhhhh"'s it was all very... my neighbourhood.
The whole thing ended with me bowing and saying thank you in order to just get all these old ducks out of my house but literally as I was closing the door, old duck number 2 said "Put her on a leash if you want to let her out!!" Now, cats on leads is another one of those unbelievable 'only in Japan' pet type things to me. Along with stores devoted totally to pet clothing, and braiding your dog's hair, I really don't think leads belong on cats. That's why people get cats, so they don't have to faff about with fucking leads. It will be a chilly day in hell before I put any cat of mine on a lead!
I plan to continue letting her out each day, maybe after a few months there will be something more interesting for the neighbourhood obachans to concentrate on.
Although this thought actually went through my head this morning along with "Piss off you old biddies, get a fucking life!!" and similar things with lots of obscenities.
I feel like half my life is spent in the genkan these days, either seeing Ryota off for work like the good little wifey that I am, fishing Ash out of there when he's sitting in the dusty pool of shoes with odd slippers on both his feet, and finally, the bloody cat that I, for some reason fought to keep, when she's darting out the door or literally hanging off my shirt wanting to go outside. I've consulted with Dr Google and he assures me, as I suspected, young cats want to go outside. Apparently they need to see/smell/piss on the big bad world for themselves, and fair play to them, being couped up in a house, let alone a Japanese shoe-box type house would drive anyone bonkers (just ask SIL). On an amusing side note, before I consulted Dr Google I asked Ryota his thoughts and he said to me: "She must be horny, she wants to let's get it on!" Gotta love dirty talk and karoke English creeping into your everyday conversations.
So I decided that she could go outside for a bit everyday, she's used to us now, has pissed on enough of our furniture to know this is her home and she never goes far anyway, so problem solved, right!?
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong!! Why is this completely sane idea wrong?? Because I live in Japan, on a dirt path, surrounded by old women who have spent their whole lives being old women (even when they looked like young women) with nothing better to do than get all up in everyone else's business.
The first incident was yesterday morning. We were all getting ready for the day when the cat darted out the door as I was putting the washing on, and instead of doing my usual mad dash down the side of the house in my bra, jeans and half made-up face to catch her, I decided she could stay outside for the few minutes until we all left. Sensible gaijin idea for the day- done! Just as I'd got my other eye mascara-ed but before I had a top on, I heard the wailing from cat-fucker next door: "Vineeeeggggaaaaarrr arrrrroooooowwww saaaaaannnn!!!!!" I ignored the first one but she continued until Ryota shouted at me from the toilet, (in English so she couldn't understand thank god!) "Corinne, the weird cat lady from next door wants you!!" I managed to just get my top on and went outside to see what she wanted, she then gave me a lecture on why cats should stay inside and that I shouldn't let her out. I wanted to tell her to get bent but the memory of me destroying her pot plant was still lurking in my mind so I played nice and thanked her graciously for her infinite wisdom (my hot monk would have been so proud of me!)
The next incident was this morning, I let the cat out for a bit of a romp around (although I really shouldn't let her romp too much, she might end up getting knocked up like her owner did! Must get her fixed...) while I did some housewifey type jobs but just as I had flopped down with a coffee and a bit of trashy TV, the front door gara gara's it's way open and suddenly an entourage of old women shuffled into my genkan. Of course they all had to come in when it looked like the lazy gaijin never does any housework, it's lucky it's not that hot anymore and I wasn't in my undies or something! Grandma then proudly held up the cat and said "Oiii, I found the damn cat, why don't you get off your gaijin arse and keep her inside!!" (I really should stop with the over-exaggerated grandma translations...) I then informed her that I knew she was outside, I'd let her out for a few minutes. Cat shagger then chimed in with "Ohhh, silly girl, I told you not to do that!" Then old lady from other side also said "I got her from near my house, she was crying you know!!" I told them that we'd decided to let her out for a bit each day and they all seriously reacted like I'd decided to poke her with hot coals for a bit each day, the shocked old wrinkly faces, the extended "eehhhhhhhhhh"'s it was all very... my neighbourhood.
The whole thing ended with me bowing and saying thank you in order to just get all these old ducks out of my house but literally as I was closing the door, old duck number 2 said "Put her on a leash if you want to let her out!!" Now, cats on leads is another one of those unbelievable 'only in Japan' pet type things to me. Along with stores devoted totally to pet clothing, and braiding your dog's hair, I really don't think leads belong on cats. That's why people get cats, so they don't have to faff about with fucking leads. It will be a chilly day in hell before I put any cat of mine on a lead!
I plan to continue letting her out each day, maybe after a few months there will be something more interesting for the neighbourhood obachans to concentrate on.
Wednesday, 15 September 2010
Welllll
Aren't I just a boring blogger lately! No racist rants to report, no annoying little control-freak antics from Grandma (although she had a minor futon freak-out at me this morning), no MIL being a general nut. Why...? Because this weekend will mark 2 weeks of total cut-off styles from the in-laws, well, SIL really, but seeing as though she's a big weirdo that never leaves the house this pretty much equals no in-law house contact either. I can't quite believe it's still going on, although it's been kinda nice to just spend the nights with Ash and Ryo-chan, more tiring as well, but most nights we'll eat dinner and all chill out in front of the wiggles until bedtime.
We did go to the in-laws for dinner on Sunday night for sushi. We got home about 20 minutes later than we thought and I felt so guilty that everyone had waited for us to eat dinner but when we all sat down and SIL was absent, I saw that a few pieces of sushi were missing and knew that she'd eaten without us first and then scurried upstairs with the dog for a session. I was going to keep my big foreign mouth shut but Ryota was quite blatant when he said to Grandma:
"Oh did the douchebag upstairs eat earlier to avoid us!?" Grandma and MIL were very quick to give diplomatic answers like "Errrr no, she was just hungry and we didn't know how long you'd be..." and "Don't be silly!" But that is soooo bullshit, she's never done that before so I guess her Kimutaku pride is still bruised. Meh, makes my life a lot easier to not have to deal with her anyway.
Easier in all aspects except one, my fucking nails. A few weeks ago when we went out clubbing SIL did my nails for me and now they're all chipped and ratty looking, this annoys me for 2 reasons, 1) I'm a bit OCD with things like that, and if it's one little chip I will just take the whole lot off and do them again. and 2) It's not the best look for an English teacher to have homeless-like nails. If they were random and sparkly it wouldn't be so noticeable but they're flat black so very easy to see the rattiness! They're gel so you need special stuff to get them off and then file them, if I have to go to a salon I'll be pissed, Ryota assured me he can get it off with paint thinner but who knows if I'll have any skin left on my hands after he's finished. Any suggestions??? I think I'll ask SIL's boss to take them off for me when she comes for her lesson next, she'll wonder what's up but I'll just have to tell her the truth, that her employee is a cunt, noooo other way to say it!
I had a meltdown of sorts yesterday, the tyre on my bike blew out at the most inconvenient time, Ryota and I had a fight over disciplining Ash the night before, (whole other story there!) I was dying from asthma and MIL and Grandma were team-tagging nagging (team- nagging?) me to go get the puncture fixed when all I wanted to do was curl up in a little ball and have a "fuuuuuuccckkkkk itttt!" big sob-filled cry. They literally pushed me out the door and down the dirt path in the direction of the bike shop but I turned around half way there as I felt tears welling up in my eyes. (hehe what a whimp!) I then locked the front door just in time before MIL tried to open the door inquiring why I'd come back. I soooo didn't want to deal with a MIL lecture so I just called out "Shindooooiiii!" (I feel like crap!!) and cried in the toilet. What a fucking baby I am! 10 minutes and an apology call from Ryota later and I toddled off to the bike shop to get the puncture fixed. So all good!
Ash is going to the in-law house tonight while I teach so we may have a SIL encounter. If other people are there it won't be so bad but what do I do if I see her one-on-one?? What would you do?? Like if she's on her way to take the dog for a post shag walk and I'm on my way in the door what do I do? Advice please, I haven't had a family fighting stand-off in ages! Not one in this close of a proximity anyway!
I'll leave you with a picture of little Ash, he got his first shiner the other day, was giggling his arse off as he was patting FIL's big bald head (we all get a kick out of taking the piss out of his baldness) and giggled his face right into the corner of the coffee table, silly little twat, when do kids realise that banging objects with their heads hurts like a mother fucker!? Anyway, I wish it was a bit more impressive, it just looks like I've put make-up on one of his eyes. Although the kindy teachers all exchanged suspicious glances before asking me what happened to him. I should have told them that in Australia we punch our kids in the face if they talk back, at least their suspicious glances wouldn't have been wasted then!
We did go to the in-laws for dinner on Sunday night for sushi. We got home about 20 minutes later than we thought and I felt so guilty that everyone had waited for us to eat dinner but when we all sat down and SIL was absent, I saw that a few pieces of sushi were missing and knew that she'd eaten without us first and then scurried upstairs with the dog for a session. I was going to keep my big foreign mouth shut but Ryota was quite blatant when he said to Grandma:
"Oh did the douchebag upstairs eat earlier to avoid us!?" Grandma and MIL were very quick to give diplomatic answers like "Errrr no, she was just hungry and we didn't know how long you'd be..." and "Don't be silly!" But that is soooo bullshit, she's never done that before so I guess her Kimutaku pride is still bruised. Meh, makes my life a lot easier to not have to deal with her anyway.
Easier in all aspects except one, my fucking nails. A few weeks ago when we went out clubbing SIL did my nails for me and now they're all chipped and ratty looking, this annoys me for 2 reasons, 1) I'm a bit OCD with things like that, and if it's one little chip I will just take the whole lot off and do them again. and 2) It's not the best look for an English teacher to have homeless-like nails. If they were random and sparkly it wouldn't be so noticeable but they're flat black so very easy to see the rattiness! They're gel so you need special stuff to get them off and then file them, if I have to go to a salon I'll be pissed, Ryota assured me he can get it off with paint thinner but who knows if I'll have any skin left on my hands after he's finished. Any suggestions??? I think I'll ask SIL's boss to take them off for me when she comes for her lesson next, she'll wonder what's up but I'll just have to tell her the truth, that her employee is a cunt, noooo other way to say it!
I had a meltdown of sorts yesterday, the tyre on my bike blew out at the most inconvenient time, Ryota and I had a fight over disciplining Ash the night before, (whole other story there!) I was dying from asthma and MIL and Grandma were team-tagging nagging (team- nagging?) me to go get the puncture fixed when all I wanted to do was curl up in a little ball and have a "fuuuuuuccckkkkk itttt!" big sob-filled cry. They literally pushed me out the door and down the dirt path in the direction of the bike shop but I turned around half way there as I felt tears welling up in my eyes. (hehe what a whimp!) I then locked the front door just in time before MIL tried to open the door inquiring why I'd come back. I soooo didn't want to deal with a MIL lecture so I just called out "Shindooooiiii!" (I feel like crap!!) and cried in the toilet. What a fucking baby I am! 10 minutes and an apology call from Ryota later and I toddled off to the bike shop to get the puncture fixed. So all good!
Ash is going to the in-law house tonight while I teach so we may have a SIL encounter. If other people are there it won't be so bad but what do I do if I see her one-on-one?? What would you do?? Like if she's on her way to take the dog for a post shag walk and I'm on my way in the door what do I do? Advice please, I haven't had a family fighting stand-off in ages! Not one in this close of a proximity anyway!
I'll leave you with a picture of little Ash, he got his first shiner the other day, was giggling his arse off as he was patting FIL's big bald head (we all get a kick out of taking the piss out of his baldness) and giggled his face right into the corner of the coffee table, silly little twat, when do kids realise that banging objects with their heads hurts like a mother fucker!? Anyway, I wish it was a bit more impressive, it just looks like I've put make-up on one of his eyes. Although the kindy teachers all exchanged suspicious glances before asking me what happened to him. I should have told them that in Australia we punch our kids in the face if they talk back, at least their suspicious glances wouldn't have been wasted then!
Monday, 13 September 2010
Hot monk!!
We had a fairly uneventful weekend, apart from me nearly dying from asthma and all (not really, but was pretty "kurushii" for a while there!). Ryota didn't go surfing due to my death stares between wheezes and coughs as he even contemplated talking about it. Ash and him both caught my cold a bit too, although not quite as bad as me luckily, so we kind of had a lazy, sleepy kind of weekend.
On Sunday, we went to FIL's house to YET AGAIN pray for Grandma's soul. That woman seriously better be appreciating the time, effort and CASH that has been forked out for her damn soul, I swear a monk is at that damn butsudan every second week! When praying was mentioned I sighed and said "fine, let's do it." But inside I was thinking 'Fuck me, not again!' Not that praying is that hard or anything. I usually go along with the drill by sitting on my feet J-style, and clasping my hands together in a prayer-ish pose, I even try to think good thoughts about Grandma, but always have to stop myself from saying "Dear God..." in my mind, as I think Buddha and God would be a little pissed if I did that...
Having a rambunctious 1 year old doesn't help either, it seems every time the monk starts chanting Ash gets an insane urge to jump on his anpanman bike and push the "Shupppaaaaatttsssuuuuu!!!!" button a zillion fucking times, how to explain to a toddler that they can not do something so mind- bogglingly fun while using hushed tones as to not interrupt the flow of Buddha or whatever the fuck is going on is quite a challenge! Although I usually use him as an excuse to relieve the numbness from my legs so I shouldn't complain too much...
The usual monk shits me to tears, he's old, he's boring, he likes to talk about himself a lot, and I can understand maybe 10% of his Japanese. Sooooo, imagine my surprise on Sunday when in walks... a hot monk! He's 32, (I asked) has lovely hands, (I couldn't stop looking) went to Tokyo university, (and not a random one THE Tokyo university!) and most importantly, I could understand his Japanese!!! Monk success I'd say. It turns out he is the usual monk's son, although I don't know how they're related, they're like chalk and cheese in every aspect. So my usual praying for Grandma's soul was brightened a little bit, maybe it's the whole Buddhist robes thing, I do like a man in uniform (but usually the non-religious type...)
We even got into a chat about different types of Buddhism, he explained the whole '6 worlds' of Japanese Buddhism and I asked him why Japanese monks got off so easily in that they could still shag and drink and eat meat and stuff. My in-laws were amazed to hear that there were monks who couldn't eat meat, they were all like "But what about yakiniku!?" Big lovable twats that they are.
Ryota got to talking to him about what Buddhists think about him going surfing all the time and my hot monk's response was "balance for all is good..." very Buddhist like I guess, but still gave Ryota licence to say to me all night "We need balance, the monk said so, I'll go surfing on Saturday just to keep the balance, OK...?"
So, I'm hoping hot monk comes back next time, I will be very disappointed if his father rocks up after all the flirting I did!
On Sunday, we went to FIL's house to YET AGAIN pray for Grandma's soul. That woman seriously better be appreciating the time, effort and CASH that has been forked out for her damn soul, I swear a monk is at that damn butsudan every second week! When praying was mentioned I sighed and said "fine, let's do it." But inside I was thinking 'Fuck me, not again!' Not that praying is that hard or anything. I usually go along with the drill by sitting on my feet J-style, and clasping my hands together in a prayer-ish pose, I even try to think good thoughts about Grandma, but always have to stop myself from saying "Dear God..." in my mind, as I think Buddha and God would be a little pissed if I did that...
Having a rambunctious 1 year old doesn't help either, it seems every time the monk starts chanting Ash gets an insane urge to jump on his anpanman bike and push the "Shupppaaaaatttsssuuuuu!!!!" button a zillion fucking times, how to explain to a toddler that they can not do something so mind- bogglingly fun while using hushed tones as to not interrupt the flow of Buddha or whatever the fuck is going on is quite a challenge! Although I usually use him as an excuse to relieve the numbness from my legs so I shouldn't complain too much...
The usual monk shits me to tears, he's old, he's boring, he likes to talk about himself a lot, and I can understand maybe 10% of his Japanese. Sooooo, imagine my surprise on Sunday when in walks... a hot monk! He's 32, (I asked) has lovely hands, (I couldn't stop looking) went to Tokyo university, (and not a random one THE Tokyo university!) and most importantly, I could understand his Japanese!!! Monk success I'd say. It turns out he is the usual monk's son, although I don't know how they're related, they're like chalk and cheese in every aspect. So my usual praying for Grandma's soul was brightened a little bit, maybe it's the whole Buddhist robes thing, I do like a man in uniform (but usually the non-religious type...)
We even got into a chat about different types of Buddhism, he explained the whole '6 worlds' of Japanese Buddhism and I asked him why Japanese monks got off so easily in that they could still shag and drink and eat meat and stuff. My in-laws were amazed to hear that there were monks who couldn't eat meat, they were all like "But what about yakiniku!?" Big lovable twats that they are.
Ryota got to talking to him about what Buddhists think about him going surfing all the time and my hot monk's response was "balance for all is good..." very Buddhist like I guess, but still gave Ryota licence to say to me all night "We need balance, the monk said so, I'll go surfing on Saturday just to keep the balance, OK...?"
So, I'm hoping hot monk comes back next time, I will be very disappointed if his father rocks up after all the flirting I did!
Saturday, 11 September 2010
This is love
What is love?
Well there's a philosophical opening, look at me being all deep and shit!
In the western world, and in my younger days, I would have said love is about romance and showing you love someone rather than saying you love someone.
Now I live in Japan, maybe I see love more as accepting that person as a part of your family and putting up with them for a reaaaallllly long time, not so romantic but family all the same.
Ryota rarely shows me he loves me in the traditional ways. I've never gotten flowers or choccies or surprise presents or anything like that. The occasional random rabu rabu mail, maybe, but nothing that 'special.' But despite the lack of romance, I've always been safe in the knowledge that he wouldn't just desert me or abandon me, he's in it for the long haul, well, if I can put up with him like.
My ex-boyfriend in Aussie, D (who I will write a post on later this week) was quite romantic, my mum only last week threw away a huge soft teddy he gave me once. Maybe it is just a young thing to do??
Anyway... the reason I'm writing this, is I've discovered love. They walk past the school every morning and every night and they bring tears to my eyes on a regular basis.
This is fucking love...
Well there's a philosophical opening, look at me being all deep and shit!
In the western world, and in my younger days, I would have said love is about romance and showing you love someone rather than saying you love someone.
Now I live in Japan, maybe I see love more as accepting that person as a part of your family and putting up with them for a reaaaallllly long time, not so romantic but family all the same.
Ryota rarely shows me he loves me in the traditional ways. I've never gotten flowers or choccies or surprise presents or anything like that. The occasional random rabu rabu mail, maybe, but nothing that 'special.' But despite the lack of romance, I've always been safe in the knowledge that he wouldn't just desert me or abandon me, he's in it for the long haul, well, if I can put up with him like.
My ex-boyfriend in Aussie, D (who I will write a post on later this week) was quite romantic, my mum only last week threw away a huge soft teddy he gave me once. Maybe it is just a young thing to do??
Anyway... the reason I'm writing this, is I've discovered love. They walk past the school every morning and every night and they bring tears to my eyes on a regular basis.
This is fucking love...
Bit hard to see, because I can't just go around snapping pictures of them! But the old guy sitting on the bench has had a stroke and can barely walk, yet he goes for a walk at least twice a day, and his wife (standing with the bag) goes with him, every slow, painful step of the way. She is kind, gentle and encourages him. His face is always twisted in pain but she gently holds his arm and smiles. I think these two are a good example of what I hope I'll be in however many years from now. If I was in an accident or if I got sick, I'd hope my partner would look after me, and the same in reverse, if he got sick I hope I'd have the patience and love for him to help him as much as this lady does.
Random, but I feel appropriate for today, as I not only am I drowning in snot from some crazy strain of cold but am wheezing and gasping for air from asthma.
Happy weekend to all of you with lungs that aren't filling up with mucus or windpipes that aren't slowly but surely tightening until you can't breathe. Lucky bastards...
Thursday, 9 September 2010
What in the lord's name is going on!?
We were young and single, once...
And then came a baby. Awwwwww!
Then it was bloody festival fish. R.I.P little dudes...
And then a bleeding cat!
And now...
The world has just gone mad, my house has turned into a shelter for abandoned animals. This big arse turtle was about to get run over, poor pet. Seriously, why are there so many turtles roaming around Japan!? I never saw turtles in Aussie, and they have perfect conditions there, here it's all concrete and sadistic elementary school kids with nets and shit. I vote to call it Shellie, (get it, shell, shellie! Was totally lost on all in-laws ((minus SIL who I'm still ignoring)) and Japanese neighbours, but I cracked myself up) and add her to our collection of annoying/smelly/noisy things in our house, but I'm thinking Ryochan will be fighting to release her back into the pond near our house, and honestly I'm quite happy to do that. What the fuck do turtles eat anyway!? Right, best be off to google turtles...
Wednesday, 8 September 2010
SMAP, part III- Concerts in Japan
Update on the Hitler SIL situation- Haven't talked to her, nor her to me. Grandma got miffed last night because Ash didn't go to the in-law's house after dinner. Asked Ryota to bring Ash to the school last night because I didn't want to see SIL, he's not talking to her either, so he didn't give any explanation but she must know we're pretty pissed with her. Who knows when the next encounter will be, I might send her a mail with my thoughts on the situation, it would still be nice to give her a piece of my mind...
Right, done with her though, there is a much more pressing issue at hand- the insane phenomenon that is, a concert in Japan!!
I haven't been to that many concerts in Japan and the majority I've been to have been festival type thingies (summer sonic) or bands more popular in the western world (prodigy, bloc party) and then I've been to SMAP- twice. (Never again!!) I've heard English speaking bands taking the piss out of Japanese fans (oasis were well nasty!) but really, I don't blame them, it is bizarre to say the least. It's like every fan (except me) got together before the concert and choreographed moves with their uchiwa/light/head towel/other random object. It's not just random bobbing, or individual rhythm bobbing, it's full-on. rehearsed. dance moves!
How are these dances decided? Who makes them up? Why doesn't everyone just dance the way they want??
As I was gawking at all the people at the SMAP concert (although was a little prepared as had been 2 years earlier) it reminded me of that movie ANTZ, or was it Bug's life... I always mix them up... But it was 1000's of people ALL doing the exact same moves and honestly, it really freaked me out! It was seriously like looking at 60,000 robots, with every fucker in the place (except for the gawking gaijin) so caught up in the dance moves that they didn't realise how ridiculous it was.
Another thing that makes me slightly sick is the "goods" corner. This is one of those things that just make me think, 'fuuuuuuuccckkkkk people in japan have waaaaayyyy too much money.' It's the whole status thing in Japan I guess, where the more shite you buy, the better you look, but fuck me the cash that must have been forked out for all that crap is ridiculous. I'll admit, I did buy a fan and a light, but only because a) The fan was 500 yen, pretty reasonable I thought, and b) the light was a present for Ash who likes to act like a little guard man of late. Justifiable...? Maybe not, but better than buying every useless crappy souvenir they had. *cough SIL cough*
The next thing I noticed on my journey of concert discovery was the hoards of desperate fuckers wanting tickets. Really? You are that desperate you'll doll yourself up to look like a whore and write a cute sign begging for tickets to a SMAP concert!? And I felt bad for the ugly ones! They weren't getting any love from people willing to sell their tickets for a profit, only the cute girls were getting any offers.
I have a cunning plan, (wow, I really miss black adder... note to self- buy black adder DVD after writing blog...) next SMAP concert, I'll tell SIL I want to go, go with her to the stadium, sell my ticket to one of the ugly desperados for double what I paid, then tell SIL to get fucked and enjoy the concert sitting next to the ugly woman! Perfect, no!?
Among the desperates, were also the scalpers. Does everyone else call it scalpers or is it just an Aussie thing?? Scalpers in Japan are ALWAYS the same kind of dude though, what's the best way to describe them... Old. Dodgy looking. Sleazy. Upper class homeless. Shady... Yup, all of those work. They go around muttering under their breath that they have tickets, yeah like any person of authority isn't going to pick them out of the crowd!?
What I didn't get though, was why the cute ticket mongers (or ugly ones for that matter...) didn't hook up with the dodgy scalping occhans?? They could have made a beautiful business deal and then gone on their merry way but I guess the occhans were ridiculously over charging and the desperates thought they had a better chance with a normal person... this, along with everything else about Japanese concerts baffles me, it really does.
So, this ends the SMAP trilogy, I hope you've enjoyed them, because this will be the last time I drag my arse to one of those bastards! If you've never been to a J-concert I definitely recommend it, if for nothing else to be amazed first hand at the sheer creepiness of it all.
Will keep you updated on any more SIL fireworks, but bound to be lots of boring passive aggressive ignoring from now on I think... I do like the Kimutaku defacing suggestion though, I was thinking this year's uchiwa would hit the hardest, he's poking his tongue out so maybe I should just pencil in some discreet vomit coming out of his mouth...
Right, done with her though, there is a much more pressing issue at hand- the insane phenomenon that is, a concert in Japan!!
I haven't been to that many concerts in Japan and the majority I've been to have been festival type thingies (summer sonic) or bands more popular in the western world (prodigy, bloc party) and then I've been to SMAP- twice. (Never again!!) I've heard English speaking bands taking the piss out of Japanese fans (oasis were well nasty!) but really, I don't blame them, it is bizarre to say the least. It's like every fan (except me) got together before the concert and choreographed moves with their uchiwa/light/head towel/other random object. It's not just random bobbing, or individual rhythm bobbing, it's full-on. rehearsed. dance moves!
How are these dances decided? Who makes them up? Why doesn't everyone just dance the way they want??
As I was gawking at all the people at the SMAP concert (although was a little prepared as had been 2 years earlier) it reminded me of that movie ANTZ, or was it Bug's life... I always mix them up... But it was 1000's of people ALL doing the exact same moves and honestly, it really freaked me out! It was seriously like looking at 60,000 robots, with every fucker in the place (except for the gawking gaijin) so caught up in the dance moves that they didn't realise how ridiculous it was.
Another thing that makes me slightly sick is the "goods" corner. This is one of those things that just make me think, 'fuuuuuuuccckkkkk people in japan have waaaaayyyy too much money.' It's the whole status thing in Japan I guess, where the more shite you buy, the better you look, but fuck me the cash that must have been forked out for all that crap is ridiculous. I'll admit, I did buy a fan and a light, but only because a) The fan was 500 yen, pretty reasonable I thought, and b) the light was a present for Ash who likes to act like a little guard man of late. Justifiable...? Maybe not, but better than buying every useless crappy souvenir they had. *cough SIL cough*
The next thing I noticed on my journey of concert discovery was the hoards of desperate fuckers wanting tickets. Really? You are that desperate you'll doll yourself up to look like a whore and write a cute sign begging for tickets to a SMAP concert!? And I felt bad for the ugly ones! They weren't getting any love from people willing to sell their tickets for a profit, only the cute girls were getting any offers.
I have a cunning plan, (wow, I really miss black adder... note to self- buy black adder DVD after writing blog...) next SMAP concert, I'll tell SIL I want to go, go with her to the stadium, sell my ticket to one of the ugly desperados for double what I paid, then tell SIL to get fucked and enjoy the concert sitting next to the ugly woman! Perfect, no!?
Among the desperates, were also the scalpers. Does everyone else call it scalpers or is it just an Aussie thing?? Scalpers in Japan are ALWAYS the same kind of dude though, what's the best way to describe them... Old. Dodgy looking. Sleazy. Upper class homeless. Shady... Yup, all of those work. They go around muttering under their breath that they have tickets, yeah like any person of authority isn't going to pick them out of the crowd!?
What I didn't get though, was why the cute ticket mongers (or ugly ones for that matter...) didn't hook up with the dodgy scalping occhans?? They could have made a beautiful business deal and then gone on their merry way but I guess the occhans were ridiculously over charging and the desperates thought they had a better chance with a normal person... this, along with everything else about Japanese concerts baffles me, it really does.
So, this ends the SMAP trilogy, I hope you've enjoyed them, because this will be the last time I drag my arse to one of those bastards! If you've never been to a J-concert I definitely recommend it, if for nothing else to be amazed first hand at the sheer creepiness of it all.
Will keep you updated on any more SIL fireworks, but bound to be lots of boring passive aggressive ignoring from now on I think... I do like the Kimutaku defacing suggestion though, I was thinking this year's uchiwa would hit the hardest, he's poking his tongue out so maybe I should just pencil in some discreet vomit coming out of his mouth...
Tuesday, 7 September 2010
SMAP,Part II- The fucking freak that is somehow supposed to be a part of my family.
I don't know quite where to start, the concert, or last night's argument... I'll start with the concert I guess, because she wasn't TOO bad that day, must have been taking her meds or gave the dog a good rogering that morning so was content, who knows...
The first incident was where to go for lunch. I know a great Indian restaurant in Umeda and as she was cat shagging around about ideas of where to eat I suggested it, assuring her that they had mild curry and that yes, they do provide knives forks, AND chopsticks. (Yes, she actually asked me if we would have to eat with our hands. Fuck stick.) I told her the chefs were actually from India, thinking this was a good reason to go there but she stopped in her tracks and said, "All of them? Indian people scare me!"
How can she say shit like this and expect a serious response from me?? I was laughing at this point, assuring her that the Indian chefs were not scary, and probably a lot friendlier than the Japanese wait staff. She then proceeded to tell me how she saw Indian people in Hong Kong and it scared her so much she vomited when she escaped back to her hotel room. I wanted to say that her saying things like that make me want to vomit all over her, but I restrained myself.
Before we left we were working out what time we had to leave and stuff, she told me originally that the concert started at 2pm, so I was thinking, OK, leave about 12-ish, grab a quick lunch, then sit down as the lights were going down and the concert was about to start. But noooooo, not for the fucking freak. The concert actually started at 4pm, but she wanted to be in the stadium at 2pm to wait for the excitement to build. Ummmm what the fuck, what excitement?! Sitting in a cramped plastic chair is exciting?! 20 minutes, I can understand but 2 cunting hours!?? I quizzed her on this as we were sitting twiddling our thumbs with 2 hours to go and she explained it like this, "This time is the most exciting time because I'm looking forward to the concert, but as soon as it starts I feel disappointed because I know it's going to finish soon..." This girl seriously has problems!!! That's taking negative thinking to some new kind of extreme, no?? I passed the time by eating soft cream and planning lessons for the week in my head.
She was also one of the hundreds of sheep with too much cash forking out for SMAP goods, she bought: A 'pamphlet' (whatever the fuck that is!?) for 2000 yen, a pen light for 1300 yen, a Kimutaku uchiwa for 500 yen, a hat for god knows how much and an overpriced bag to carry it all in. I'm guessing Grandma gave her the cash for all that shit plus the 8000 yen ticket, considering she's too lazy to get a real job and works one day a week at the most.
The actual concert time was great, it was so loud I didn't have to listen to any garbage that spewed out of her mouth. Although I did have to witness her awkward interactions with BIL's friend. (BIL and his little hobbit friend came but left home as we were sitting in the stadium and actually got there at a reasonable time) Hobbit is a sweet kid, but I don't know, another one of those rich, naive kids that annoy me in Japan. He may be sexually confused or maybe he just thinks he's cool because he was wearing tights under his shorts and LOTS of blingy stuff. His mobile phone is also covered in bling and his nails are more sparkly than mine with para para poi jewels and all. He's nice though so I'll forgive him, but SIL has just had nooooo interaction with boys apart from her brothers that she gets all giggly and stupid, saying really daft things, even for her. Maybe he's perfect for her though, bit dopey and impressionable so he won't disagree with any of her fucked up ideas. They bonded over J-pop and concerts they'd been to, he even promised to lend her his Ai concert DVD, how sweet, match made bad music heaven perhaps...
OK........
On to last night. Ryota and I were at the in-laws house, just hanging out, and BIL and I were discussing the SMAP concert like 2 normal people would- good stuff, crap stuff, things we liked/ didn't like, you know, opinions! Apparently this didn't sit well with SIL, she didn't like the fact that I was dissing Kimutaku.
My take on Kimutaku is: I think he's actually good looking and not got a bad voice, but I really don't like how much of a narcissist he is, everything he does is on purpose, he's not natural at all and I just don't like him. And I thought we were living in a free country but apparently little miss Hitler thinks I shouldn't say bad things about Kimutaku if I'm going to go to a SMAP concert...
How has this even become an argument!? Opinion is just that, they differ!!!!
I explained to her as gently and as controlled as I could that it is quite common in Australia to like one band member better than others, especially in a band like SMAP where all members are stars in their own right, not just a band that is about music. This is where she got VERY fucking angry, raising her voice and seriously getting fired up. She said that this isn't Australia, it's Japan and I shouldn't rock the boat with my foreign culture. I was getting pissed a this point but knew I couldn't express myself properly in Japanese so I laughed and said "I'm not Japanese, get over it."
It was at this point that Ryota jumped in too (more as a joke though) and started fully taking the piss out of Kimutaku immitating his hair flicks and stuff. She got reaaaaaallllllyyy angry then and told him basically to fuck off to his own house and to stop coming over. She was full on yelling at him non-stop but he just kept laughing at her and telling her to shut up, which of course made her more angry... It ended with me walking out, still pissed at myself for not telling her to shut the fuck up, but it's sooooo hard for me to be angry in Japanese, I don't have the confidence and I don't want anyone to translate because it makes me feel stupid. I didn't even want to get angry at her (well, I did) but more than anything I wanted to say something to the effect of:
"Unko... you are so narrow minded it makes me sick. You have no friends, and I know why. You are negative, and poisonous and just plain weird. Your views offend me. You cannot blast someone for having a different opinion, it's just not how a free world works. You need to get out of this house, spit out mummy's tit and try living in the real world on your own, just once. You'll find if you go around spewing the filth and shit that comes out of your ugly mouth, you will be punched in the face. Go fuck your dog you stupid bitch."
That's really what I wanted to say, but the main point I wanted to get across is that this isn't war-time Germany, you seriously can not be pissed at someone for having a different opinion to you to the point where you are hurling abuse at them!! Don't fucking tell me I should be Japanese, bitch, seriously!!!
I was thinking about the whole thing a lot last night and it really worries me that a) Ash will be growing up around people like her. b) I can't tell her what I really think because of language barriers and the fact that we still have to live next door to her after it's all said and done.
At least in Australia I can stand up for what I believe in and tell twats to go get fucked...
I don't plan on talking to her, ever if possible. I know it'll calm down, but really I don't want Ash to be narrow minded, he at least needs a chance to be able to be open to new ideas and being around vipers like her will not help that cause. She's supposed to be bringing Ash to the school tonight to meet her boss (she's taking lessons) but I'm going to ask MIL to bring him or to not bother, no chance I'm going to play nice for her sake. And she can get fucked for the next concert, she can ask one of her other friends, oh wait, she doesn't have any!
The first incident was where to go for lunch. I know a great Indian restaurant in Umeda and as she was cat shagging around about ideas of where to eat I suggested it, assuring her that they had mild curry and that yes, they do provide knives forks, AND chopsticks. (Yes, she actually asked me if we would have to eat with our hands. Fuck stick.) I told her the chefs were actually from India, thinking this was a good reason to go there but she stopped in her tracks and said, "All of them? Indian people scare me!"
How can she say shit like this and expect a serious response from me?? I was laughing at this point, assuring her that the Indian chefs were not scary, and probably a lot friendlier than the Japanese wait staff. She then proceeded to tell me how she saw Indian people in Hong Kong and it scared her so much she vomited when she escaped back to her hotel room. I wanted to say that her saying things like that make me want to vomit all over her, but I restrained myself.
Before we left we were working out what time we had to leave and stuff, she told me originally that the concert started at 2pm, so I was thinking, OK, leave about 12-ish, grab a quick lunch, then sit down as the lights were going down and the concert was about to start. But noooooo, not for the fucking freak. The concert actually started at 4pm, but she wanted to be in the stadium at 2pm to wait for the excitement to build. Ummmm what the fuck, what excitement?! Sitting in a cramped plastic chair is exciting?! 20 minutes, I can understand but 2 cunting hours!?? I quizzed her on this as we were sitting twiddling our thumbs with 2 hours to go and she explained it like this, "This time is the most exciting time because I'm looking forward to the concert, but as soon as it starts I feel disappointed because I know it's going to finish soon..." This girl seriously has problems!!! That's taking negative thinking to some new kind of extreme, no?? I passed the time by eating soft cream and planning lessons for the week in my head.
She was also one of the hundreds of sheep with too much cash forking out for SMAP goods, she bought: A 'pamphlet' (whatever the fuck that is!?) for 2000 yen, a pen light for 1300 yen, a Kimutaku uchiwa for 500 yen, a hat for god knows how much and an overpriced bag to carry it all in. I'm guessing Grandma gave her the cash for all that shit plus the 8000 yen ticket, considering she's too lazy to get a real job and works one day a week at the most.
The actual concert time was great, it was so loud I didn't have to listen to any garbage that spewed out of her mouth. Although I did have to witness her awkward interactions with BIL's friend. (BIL and his little hobbit friend came but left home as we were sitting in the stadium and actually got there at a reasonable time) Hobbit is a sweet kid, but I don't know, another one of those rich, naive kids that annoy me in Japan. He may be sexually confused or maybe he just thinks he's cool because he was wearing tights under his shorts and LOTS of blingy stuff. His mobile phone is also covered in bling and his nails are more sparkly than mine with para para poi jewels and all. He's nice though so I'll forgive him, but SIL has just had nooooo interaction with boys apart from her brothers that she gets all giggly and stupid, saying really daft things, even for her. Maybe he's perfect for her though, bit dopey and impressionable so he won't disagree with any of her fucked up ideas. They bonded over J-pop and concerts they'd been to, he even promised to lend her his Ai concert DVD, how sweet, match made bad music heaven perhaps...
OK........
On to last night. Ryota and I were at the in-laws house, just hanging out, and BIL and I were discussing the SMAP concert like 2 normal people would- good stuff, crap stuff, things we liked/ didn't like, you know, opinions! Apparently this didn't sit well with SIL, she didn't like the fact that I was dissing Kimutaku.
My take on Kimutaku is: I think he's actually good looking and not got a bad voice, but I really don't like how much of a narcissist he is, everything he does is on purpose, he's not natural at all and I just don't like him. And I thought we were living in a free country but apparently little miss Hitler thinks I shouldn't say bad things about Kimutaku if I'm going to go to a SMAP concert...
How has this even become an argument!? Opinion is just that, they differ!!!!
I explained to her as gently and as controlled as I could that it is quite common in Australia to like one band member better than others, especially in a band like SMAP where all members are stars in their own right, not just a band that is about music. This is where she got VERY fucking angry, raising her voice and seriously getting fired up. She said that this isn't Australia, it's Japan and I shouldn't rock the boat with my foreign culture. I was getting pissed a this point but knew I couldn't express myself properly in Japanese so I laughed and said "I'm not Japanese, get over it."
It was at this point that Ryota jumped in too (more as a joke though) and started fully taking the piss out of Kimutaku immitating his hair flicks and stuff. She got reaaaaaallllllyyy angry then and told him basically to fuck off to his own house and to stop coming over. She was full on yelling at him non-stop but he just kept laughing at her and telling her to shut up, which of course made her more angry... It ended with me walking out, still pissed at myself for not telling her to shut the fuck up, but it's sooooo hard for me to be angry in Japanese, I don't have the confidence and I don't want anyone to translate because it makes me feel stupid. I didn't even want to get angry at her (well, I did) but more than anything I wanted to say something to the effect of:
"Unko... you are so narrow minded it makes me sick. You have no friends, and I know why. You are negative, and poisonous and just plain weird. Your views offend me. You cannot blast someone for having a different opinion, it's just not how a free world works. You need to get out of this house, spit out mummy's tit and try living in the real world on your own, just once. You'll find if you go around spewing the filth and shit that comes out of your ugly mouth, you will be punched in the face. Go fuck your dog you stupid bitch."
That's really what I wanted to say, but the main point I wanted to get across is that this isn't war-time Germany, you seriously can not be pissed at someone for having a different opinion to you to the point where you are hurling abuse at them!! Don't fucking tell me I should be Japanese, bitch, seriously!!!
I was thinking about the whole thing a lot last night and it really worries me that a) Ash will be growing up around people like her. b) I can't tell her what I really think because of language barriers and the fact that we still have to live next door to her after it's all said and done.
At least in Australia I can stand up for what I believe in and tell twats to go get fucked...
I don't plan on talking to her, ever if possible. I know it'll calm down, but really I don't want Ash to be narrow minded, he at least needs a chance to be able to be open to new ideas and being around vipers like her will not help that cause. She's supposed to be bringing Ash to the school tonight to meet her boss (she's taking lessons) but I'm going to ask MIL to bring him or to not bother, no chance I'm going to play nice for her sake. And she can get fucked for the next concert, she can ask one of her other friends, oh wait, she doesn't have any!
Dog-fucking bitch
Wow, I actually feel better!!! Although have been grinding my teeth in anger writing this and thinking about it all again...
Monday, 6 September 2010
Oh.my.fucking.god!
Ok posting from bed as am still too livid to sleep!
Mother fucking alien sil and I had a major blow out tonight but I'm actually kicking myself for not and not being able to say what I wanted. I wanted to say something to the effect of "shut your trap and go fuck your dog you ugly cunt" but in Japanese it would probably come out more as "please be quiet and go and have some relations with that puppy, old chap"....
Ok will post whole story tomorrow, as is smap related anyway but fuck me, tonight has really seriously got me thinking of moving to Australia, or at least away from that stupid bitch.
Night!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
SMAP, The review. Part I- The show.
I feel I can't blog about the SMAP concert in one post, there were far too many things that annoyed me about the whole day, so I fear it will become a trilogy filled with racism, big hair and sarcasm, hmmmm my favourite combo!
I thought this first installment should be about the actual show, as I'm likely to forget the small details. The second part will inevitably be devoted to the quirkiness and racism of SIL, and the third post will be my musings and observations on the general phenomenon of concerts in Japan.
Sooooo, we got to Osaka dome with 5 million hours to spare, (see tomorrow's SIL post for more ranting on this) bought our overpriced goods (this will be explored further in part III) and took our seats, soft cream in hands. As we waited for, well, anything to start, the stadium slowly but very surely started to fill up. 60,000 people fill-up like! Sorry, can we just do some quick maths here...
1 ticket= 8,000 yen...
Overpriced goods= At least 1500 yen per person (and every fucker except the 3 gaijin present buy them!)
x 60,000 people....
x 4 shows in Osaka....
OK, that's a shitoad of cash contributing to the tweaking of Kimutaku's hair!
Anyway, with about half an hour till starting time, a huge clock came up on the big screen, and.... started ticking. Was this supposed to build up excitement?? Because all it did for me was make me want to throw my soft cream at the screen to make that fucking ticking stop. SIL assured me it was all part of the suspense though.
At about the same time, people with white sheets over them and a huge world globes on their heads (the globe is the theme? logo? for the tour this year) started mingling among the crowd. I actually got to pat one of their globe heads as I walked past from throwing out my soft cream wrapper. By the time the show started, there was about 30 of these globe heads walking around. We all had our suspicions, the crowd was rife with whispers at the possibility that the SMAP boys were under the big globes. And 'yappari!' when the show started with all it's fire works and big screen video glory, 5 dudes in space suits got out of the space ship making us think they were our idols, but they actually jumped through this big arse hole in the stage (that was one of the best parts of the show for me!) and low and behold... The boys took globes off their head, making all the ladies in the crowd soak their panties at the thought that they had mingled with them before the show.
This was a little predictable for me, but meh, good for light entertainment. It basically went downhill from there, they did the big numbers, sekai ni hitotsu and the other 3 songs I actually knew the words to in between a lot of the songs where I was thinking about other things and just fake jigging around. I felt the show was lacking in acrobatics this year as well, 2 years ago, the boys all came on to the stage on flying foxes but this year the most acrobatic they got was Tsuyoshi-kun and his back flips, which are pretty impressive I must admit.
Nakai-kun was his usual off-key self, they disguised his solo parts well as usual too, distracting the audience with big music or dancing. The part which made me laugh the most was actually Nakai-kuns solo little part. (they usually all have one solo song) They showed a comedic video of Nakai kun as 3 different kids talking about their futures. At the start of the video he did a little solo that made my ears bleed. He seriously sounds like a cat with laryngitis getting de-bollocked, horrible singing! Then the second part of the video was the little kid saying he wanted to be a big a star as Michael Jackson, then it was like 5 minutes of Nakai-kun dancing like Michael Jackson, and I say 'like' MJ, but it was actually really, really shit. There's just not any other way to describe it!
After this atrocity, there were many boring solos from the other boys (lovey dovey type songs), so more wet panties I'm sure. Amid the boring solos and few upbeat numbers, there was a part where they all talked to the audience and each other. I'm going to say my Shingo stole the show here, he's a much better entertainer than the others in my opinion, but then, I'm biased as I would very much like to have my way with him...
Tsuyoshi annoyed me, Goro was his usual painfully shy goody-two-shoes self, Nakai was an idiot, and Kimutaku, well, don't get me started, some brain vessel may just burst in my brain. he is just sooooooo up himself, hot, but up himself, so I guess it balances out.
My feet were killing me, as absolutely EVERY bastard stands up, the entire time and I was very over it by the end. There were good moments and I'm glad I went, but really don't think it was worth my hard-earned 8,oo0 yen. At the end of the show, they said bye bye and thank you and sayonara and there was the obligatory encore where they sang at least another 4 songs, WTF, doesn't encore mean one more song, fuck off already I'm tired!
And then there was ANOTHER encore, how does this work!? Finally, they sunk into the stage on a big podium, but not before going round the whole stadium on big wheelie, cart thingies. We were pretty close to the back, if we'd been closer to the front I would have flashed Shingo, but it would have been wasted so didn't bother.
So I leave you from part I with a few snaps, I didn't take any of the actual show, because there were sniper security dudes everywhere, not that they were that scary, but sometimes I feel I should stick by the rules if for nothing else than to break the 'rule-breaking, rebel gaijin' mold...
I thought this first installment should be about the actual show, as I'm likely to forget the small details. The second part will inevitably be devoted to the quirkiness and racism of SIL, and the third post will be my musings and observations on the general phenomenon of concerts in Japan.
Sooooo, we got to Osaka dome with 5 million hours to spare, (see tomorrow's SIL post for more ranting on this) bought our overpriced goods (this will be explored further in part III) and took our seats, soft cream in hands. As we waited for, well, anything to start, the stadium slowly but very surely started to fill up. 60,000 people fill-up like! Sorry, can we just do some quick maths here...
1 ticket= 8,000 yen...
Overpriced goods= At least 1500 yen per person (and every fucker except the 3 gaijin present buy them!)
x 60,000 people....
x 4 shows in Osaka....
OK, that's a shitoad of cash contributing to the tweaking of Kimutaku's hair!
Anyway, with about half an hour till starting time, a huge clock came up on the big screen, and.... started ticking. Was this supposed to build up excitement?? Because all it did for me was make me want to throw my soft cream at the screen to make that fucking ticking stop. SIL assured me it was all part of the suspense though.
At about the same time, people with white sheets over them and a huge world globes on their heads (the globe is the theme? logo? for the tour this year) started mingling among the crowd. I actually got to pat one of their globe heads as I walked past from throwing out my soft cream wrapper. By the time the show started, there was about 30 of these globe heads walking around. We all had our suspicions, the crowd was rife with whispers at the possibility that the SMAP boys were under the big globes. And 'yappari!' when the show started with all it's fire works and big screen video glory, 5 dudes in space suits got out of the space ship making us think they were our idols, but they actually jumped through this big arse hole in the stage (that was one of the best parts of the show for me!) and low and behold... The boys took globes off their head, making all the ladies in the crowd soak their panties at the thought that they had mingled with them before the show.
This was a little predictable for me, but meh, good for light entertainment. It basically went downhill from there, they did the big numbers, sekai ni hitotsu and the other 3 songs I actually knew the words to in between a lot of the songs where I was thinking about other things and just fake jigging around. I felt the show was lacking in acrobatics this year as well, 2 years ago, the boys all came on to the stage on flying foxes but this year the most acrobatic they got was Tsuyoshi-kun and his back flips, which are pretty impressive I must admit.
Nakai-kun was his usual off-key self, they disguised his solo parts well as usual too, distracting the audience with big music or dancing. The part which made me laugh the most was actually Nakai-kuns solo little part. (they usually all have one solo song) They showed a comedic video of Nakai kun as 3 different kids talking about their futures. At the start of the video he did a little solo that made my ears bleed. He seriously sounds like a cat with laryngitis getting de-bollocked, horrible singing! Then the second part of the video was the little kid saying he wanted to be a big a star as Michael Jackson, then it was like 5 minutes of Nakai-kun dancing like Michael Jackson, and I say 'like' MJ, but it was actually really, really shit. There's just not any other way to describe it!
After this atrocity, there were many boring solos from the other boys (lovey dovey type songs), so more wet panties I'm sure. Amid the boring solos and few upbeat numbers, there was a part where they all talked to the audience and each other. I'm going to say my Shingo stole the show here, he's a much better entertainer than the others in my opinion, but then, I'm biased as I would very much like to have my way with him...
Tsuyoshi annoyed me, Goro was his usual painfully shy goody-two-shoes self, Nakai was an idiot, and Kimutaku, well, don't get me started, some brain vessel may just burst in my brain. he is just sooooooo up himself, hot, but up himself, so I guess it balances out.
My feet were killing me, as absolutely EVERY bastard stands up, the entire time and I was very over it by the end. There were good moments and I'm glad I went, but really don't think it was worth my hard-earned 8,oo0 yen. At the end of the show, they said bye bye and thank you and sayonara and there was the obligatory encore where they sang at least another 4 songs, WTF, doesn't encore mean one more song, fuck off already I'm tired!
And then there was ANOTHER encore, how does this work!? Finally, they sunk into the stage on a big podium, but not before going round the whole stadium on big wheelie, cart thingies. We were pretty close to the back, if we'd been closer to the front I would have flashed Shingo, but it would have been wasted so didn't bother.
So I leave you from part I with a few snaps, I didn't take any of the actual show, because there were sniper security dudes everywhere, not that they were that scary, but sometimes I feel I should stick by the rules if for nothing else than to break the 'rule-breaking, rebel gaijin' mold...
Notice the beer (I had 4 before we left) I had to down to get through a lunch AND a concert with SIL!
Sunday, 5 September 2010
Pre warning!
I am about to spend the WHOLE day with sil, we're off to ogle the boys at the smap concert. And it's only us for the majority of the day. Fuuuuucccckkkk....
This will definitely make for blogging material tomorrow!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
This will definitely make for blogging material tomorrow!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Friday, 3 September 2010
The aisatsu snub
I didn't realise why I had enjoyed August so much, but it was all made clear this morning, as I made my way through the crowds of yochien mums and their uniformed offspring to drop Ash off at kindy, it came to me that August had been aisatsu snub-free and it was great!
Aisatsu (greetings) are very important in Japan, if you fall within the realm of the aisatsu net, you MUST do it, I think if you don't, some device will explode under the spot where you are standing. And you know, I'm down with the aisatsu, I think it's nice for us humans to interact with each other once in a while.
What I don't like, is the intricate web of aisatsu rules and regulations that get confusing when two institutions are close together. Let me explain myself a bit more better like... For example, aisatsu at work are a must, you MUST say good morning to every member within your immediate department. But then how does it go for other floors?? Or people in the elevator?? This is where the aisatsu area gets a bit grey. In my case, seeing as though my workplace consists of yours truly plus a few bugs and whatnot, this isn't a problem anymore. It confused the hell out of me when I worked at a big company though, but I just lived up to my 'cheery Aussie' persona and aisatsu-ed the fuck out of any bastard who walked by.
The pickle of a dilli-o that I have now, is the kindy vs yochien aisatsu battle. EVERY kindy mother, pms-ing or not, will ALWAYS do aisatsu, it's a little annoying actually, especially when I'm standing in the genkan waiting for Ash to get his arse into gear and look at the bugs and stuff, I have to aisatsu about 50 bastard mothers before we actually get in the classroom. But I can deal, the thing I can't deal with is the yochien mothers. I don't actually think that they're all bitches, it's impossible, I think it's just some unwritten code that the kindy mothers and the yochien mothers are not obligated to interact with each other. Problem is, the kindy and the yochien are right next to each other, and when I'm aisatsu-ing a kindy mum, there will be a yochien mum right next to me. Am I seriously just supposed to ignore her because her kid is wearing a uniform and mine isn't?? Madness!
So, after thinking on this I thought, fuck it, I'm just going to share the aisatsu love with everyone within a reasonable distance of the kindy/yochien who is walking with a kid. Sounds reasonable right? Wrong.
I'm upsetting the balance obviously, because about 70% of the yochien mothers will either mumble a good morning back or not respond at all. How fucking rude!
I'm was contemplating going with the sheep and sticking to my own kindy mothers to greet but I figure someone needs to break this ridiculous trend of only greeting a certain group, and why not the gaijin with her crazy international friendliness ideas!?
I think I'll add a special twist for the bitchy mums though, a hearty "OHAYO GOZAIMASU UP-TIGHT FUCKER!!" should suffice, no...?
Aisatsu (greetings) are very important in Japan, if you fall within the realm of the aisatsu net, you MUST do it, I think if you don't, some device will explode under the spot where you are standing. And you know, I'm down with the aisatsu, I think it's nice for us humans to interact with each other once in a while.
What I don't like, is the intricate web of aisatsu rules and regulations that get confusing when two institutions are close together. Let me explain myself a bit more better like... For example, aisatsu at work are a must, you MUST say good morning to every member within your immediate department. But then how does it go for other floors?? Or people in the elevator?? This is where the aisatsu area gets a bit grey. In my case, seeing as though my workplace consists of yours truly plus a few bugs and whatnot, this isn't a problem anymore. It confused the hell out of me when I worked at a big company though, but I just lived up to my 'cheery Aussie' persona and aisatsu-ed the fuck out of any bastard who walked by.
The pickle of a dilli-o that I have now, is the kindy vs yochien aisatsu battle. EVERY kindy mother, pms-ing or not, will ALWAYS do aisatsu, it's a little annoying actually, especially when I'm standing in the genkan waiting for Ash to get his arse into gear and look at the bugs and stuff, I have to aisatsu about 50 bastard mothers before we actually get in the classroom. But I can deal, the thing I can't deal with is the yochien mothers. I don't actually think that they're all bitches, it's impossible, I think it's just some unwritten code that the kindy mothers and the yochien mothers are not obligated to interact with each other. Problem is, the kindy and the yochien are right next to each other, and when I'm aisatsu-ing a kindy mum, there will be a yochien mum right next to me. Am I seriously just supposed to ignore her because her kid is wearing a uniform and mine isn't?? Madness!
So, after thinking on this I thought, fuck it, I'm just going to share the aisatsu love with everyone within a reasonable distance of the kindy/yochien who is walking with a kid. Sounds reasonable right? Wrong.
I'm upsetting the balance obviously, because about 70% of the yochien mothers will either mumble a good morning back or not respond at all. How fucking rude!
I'm was contemplating going with the sheep and sticking to my own kindy mothers to greet but I figure someone needs to break this ridiculous trend of only greeting a certain group, and why not the gaijin with her crazy international friendliness ideas!?
I think I'll add a special twist for the bitchy mums though, a hearty "OHAYO GOZAIMASU UP-TIGHT FUCKER!!" should suffice, no...?
Thursday, 2 September 2010
I fucking love you Japan!
It's days like today, where Grandma could say anything, old men in yellow vests could yell at me for parking my bike in the wrong place, I could be forced to eat nothing but tsukemono all day and I would still love Japan today.
You know how everyone says "Japan is safety country!!" Well they are right, bad English and all.
I went for a run this morning with my little pink arm bag, (it's like a bum bag except it goes around your arm if that makes any sense...) inside it was the school keys, 10,000 yen, Ryota's credit card and some coins. And I dropped the fucker.
I only realised when I got to the pond that it wasn't in my bike basket and immediately went into panic mode at the possibility of cancelling credit cards and getting new school keys cut and all that crap. I cycled back over the way I'd come, scanning for the bright pink bugger but it was nowhere to be found. I was just about to burst into tears when I arrived at the school to a glorious little piece of paper flapping in the breeze taped to the school door. As soon as I saw it, I knew the 'safety country' theory was in practice. One of the guys from the asahi newspaper office next door had found it on the footpath and kept it for me. As I went and got it, panic sweat dripping down me, I was so fucking relieved I wanted to kiss him, despite the fact he's about 60 years old and incredibly repulsive on a normal day.
So thank you asahi shinbun geezer, if your paper wasn't so boring and impossible to read without a kanji dictionary, I'd buy a copy. And thank you Japan, thank you for not being overrun with junkies who would have used my credit card to snort some coke and then go on a spending spree! Thank you for being a safety country, please continue being a safety country for as ever long as I am here and still an air headed bimbo. Thank you thank you thank you!!!!
You know how everyone says "Japan is safety country!!" Well they are right, bad English and all.
I went for a run this morning with my little pink arm bag, (it's like a bum bag except it goes around your arm if that makes any sense...) inside it was the school keys, 10,000 yen, Ryota's credit card and some coins. And I dropped the fucker.
I only realised when I got to the pond that it wasn't in my bike basket and immediately went into panic mode at the possibility of cancelling credit cards and getting new school keys cut and all that crap. I cycled back over the way I'd come, scanning for the bright pink bugger but it was nowhere to be found. I was just about to burst into tears when I arrived at the school to a glorious little piece of paper flapping in the breeze taped to the school door. As soon as I saw it, I knew the 'safety country' theory was in practice. One of the guys from the asahi newspaper office next door had found it on the footpath and kept it for me. As I went and got it, panic sweat dripping down me, I was so fucking relieved I wanted to kiss him, despite the fact he's about 60 years old and incredibly repulsive on a normal day.
So thank you asahi shinbun geezer, if your paper wasn't so boring and impossible to read without a kanji dictionary, I'd buy a copy. And thank you Japan, thank you for not being overrun with junkies who would have used my credit card to snort some coke and then go on a spending spree! Thank you for being a safety country, please continue being a safety country for as ever long as I am here and still an air headed bimbo. Thank you thank you thank you!!!!
Wednesday, 1 September 2010
The silent treatment...
Ryota and I really don't fight that much. I'm going to say we fight an average amount, usually little things, sometimes big things and very occasionally, things that make me want to take one of his surfboards and shove it right up his clacker before slamming my inkan down on the divorce papers.
I remember our first fight ever. I was pretty damn pregnant and we had a fight about who had put the bacon in the freezer without separating it into small packages. Silly really, we should have just fried all the bacon up and have been done with it! But he was insistent it wasn't him and I KNEW it wasn't me. I'm the kind of person who won't fight if I'm not 100% sure, but when it came to the bacon, I knew I hadn't just shoved it all in the freezer in a big block (such a Ryota thing to do). So we screamed at each other for a few minutes until I stormed out of the apartment, it was snowing and as I said I had a massive baby belly, so decided to go home after having a bit of a sob in the park down the road for fear of giving my unborn child hypothermia. Ryota had gone looking for me and when he got back we just let the issue lie and apologised to each other, then about an hour later he was like, "Ohhhh fuck, I remember putting the bacon in now..." What a twat!!
I guess after Ash was born the main fights have been about major life decisions (where to live, to start a business or not... blah blah) or about how to raise Ash, i.e. Ryota believes in no discipline and chocolate for breakfast, whereas I, do not. Other little arguments are usually pretty quickly resolved by either a) me crying b) me apologising first c) Ashton distracting us.
But basically, he is a stubborn cock head who will NEVER apologise first, and then when I say sorry, just for the stupid fight to be over, he always says, without fail, "OK, I forgive you!" Just to be a big smart arse.
So on Monday night, we had one of the stupidest fights to date, it even beat the bacon fight! Basically I'd taught lessons all day (well, not all day, but enough to be buggered) and had still found time to make fucking good hamburgers. I should point out I don't like cooking, I fucking hate cooking, so if I make something I'm pretty damn proud of myself! As we sat down with our fucking amazing hamburgers, salad and tea, Ryota had the fucking nerve to mutter "Hmmm I'd rather have coke than tea..." Mother fucker! But not wanting to cause waves, I said "OK darling, let me go and get you one, there's no cold ones so I'll have to fuck around with ice, but I love you, so I will!" I then got his tea so I could pour it back in the bottle (Yorkshire up bringing coming in there, waste not want not!). As I took the tea away, he said "Can you do it??" Now this may be a language barrier, he said it to me in English, and to me, this gives the tone of 'You're sooo going to spill that you daft cow' so I responded in a bit of a pissed off way and said something like "Of course I can do it!" but not like PMS raging bitch-like or anything, just in a teasing way like. Ryota then got really pissed and said "それやめてくれへん？！” He started speaking angry Japanese so I knew he was pissed, so I tried to calmly explain to him he had implied that I couldn't do it by asking me if i could. Wow, this is getting confusing...Sorry! Anyway, cut out all the other bits and in the end it basically went that he asked me what he should say in that situation and i responded "Nothing. Or thank you." He then took this opportunity to say "Fine then, I'm never talking. EVER AGAIN!!!"
Errrr how old are you again, like 5?! What the fuck!?
Anyway, he didn't talk, not that night, or the next morning, or the next day.
Now usually I cave in after about an hour of the silent treatment and grovel but I was fucked if I was doing that this time, so I stood my silent ground too. I think he was a little shocked, I didn't even pack his work bag for him like I usually do. I realised by the next day when the arsehole had let me ride my bike to the next town over in the blistering heat when he could have driven me that he wasn't going to cave and apologise any time soon so I sent him a message that basically told him to move out of the house until he could grow up and say sorry, and that I wasn't going to put up with this 'gaman' shit that J-wives may put up with. I think I even threw the divorce word in there just to scare him!
And scare him it did, he said he didn't understand most of the big words in my English mail but knew 'move out' and 'divorce' and almost shit himself! Will do the wanker good to have a bit of a scare I say! We did talk and came to the conclusion it was more of a language/culture miscommunication than anything else and we would both try harder in the future. Gotta love fighting, if nothing else for all the makin' up!
I remember our first fight ever. I was pretty damn pregnant and we had a fight about who had put the bacon in the freezer without separating it into small packages. Silly really, we should have just fried all the bacon up and have been done with it! But he was insistent it wasn't him and I KNEW it wasn't me. I'm the kind of person who won't fight if I'm not 100% sure, but when it came to the bacon, I knew I hadn't just shoved it all in the freezer in a big block (such a Ryota thing to do). So we screamed at each other for a few minutes until I stormed out of the apartment, it was snowing and as I said I had a massive baby belly, so decided to go home after having a bit of a sob in the park down the road for fear of giving my unborn child hypothermia. Ryota had gone looking for me and when he got back we just let the issue lie and apologised to each other, then about an hour later he was like, "Ohhhh fuck, I remember putting the bacon in now..." What a twat!!
I guess after Ash was born the main fights have been about major life decisions (where to live, to start a business or not... blah blah) or about how to raise Ash, i.e. Ryota believes in no discipline and chocolate for breakfast, whereas I, do not. Other little arguments are usually pretty quickly resolved by either a) me crying b) me apologising first c) Ashton distracting us.
But basically, he is a stubborn cock head who will NEVER apologise first, and then when I say sorry, just for the stupid fight to be over, he always says, without fail, "OK, I forgive you!" Just to be a big smart arse.
So on Monday night, we had one of the stupidest fights to date, it even beat the bacon fight! Basically I'd taught lessons all day (well, not all day, but enough to be buggered) and had still found time to make fucking good hamburgers. I should point out I don't like cooking, I fucking hate cooking, so if I make something I'm pretty damn proud of myself! As we sat down with our fucking amazing hamburgers, salad and tea, Ryota had the fucking nerve to mutter "Hmmm I'd rather have coke than tea..." Mother fucker! But not wanting to cause waves, I said "OK darling, let me go and get you one, there's no cold ones so I'll have to fuck around with ice, but I love you, so I will!" I then got his tea so I could pour it back in the bottle (Yorkshire up bringing coming in there, waste not want not!). As I took the tea away, he said "Can you do it??" Now this may be a language barrier, he said it to me in English, and to me, this gives the tone of 'You're sooo going to spill that you daft cow' so I responded in a bit of a pissed off way and said something like "Of course I can do it!" but not like PMS raging bitch-like or anything, just in a teasing way like. Ryota then got really pissed and said "それやめてくれへん？！” He started speaking angry Japanese so I knew he was pissed, so I tried to calmly explain to him he had implied that I couldn't do it by asking me if i could. Wow, this is getting confusing...Sorry! Anyway, cut out all the other bits and in the end it basically went that he asked me what he should say in that situation and i responded "Nothing. Or thank you." He then took this opportunity to say "Fine then, I'm never talking. EVER AGAIN!!!"
Errrr how old are you again, like 5?! What the fuck!?
Anyway, he didn't talk, not that night, or the next morning, or the next day.
Now usually I cave in after about an hour of the silent treatment and grovel but I was fucked if I was doing that this time, so I stood my silent ground too. I think he was a little shocked, I didn't even pack his work bag for him like I usually do. I realised by the next day when the arsehole had let me ride my bike to the next town over in the blistering heat when he could have driven me that he wasn't going to cave and apologise any time soon so I sent him a message that basically told him to move out of the house until he could grow up and say sorry, and that I wasn't going to put up with this 'gaman' shit that J-wives may put up with. I think I even threw the divorce word in there just to scare him!
And scare him it did, he said he didn't understand most of the big words in my English mail but knew 'move out' and 'divorce' and almost shit himself! Will do the wanker good to have a bit of a scare I say! We did talk and came to the conclusion it was more of a language/culture miscommunication than anything else and we would both try harder in the future. Gotta love fighting, if nothing else for all the makin' up!
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