Lazy

Sorry I've been so neglectful. I haven't been too incredibly busy with school but you know, I like to exagerrate my life. So let's just say I've been really busy.

This week was 3 days of solid crap. That's right. It sort of rained, but not really that hard. But the effect on Tokyo was like living in an armpit. It was really gross and humid. And it wasn't even warm at all. I'm looking so forward to summer when it's 99% humidity and 28 degrees...

I do have some sort of exciting news. Tonight I'll be on a boat on my way to Hachijojima. Hachijojima is part of the Izu Islands that are quite south of Japan but for some reason are still considered part of Tokyo. There is a map on this page. It's in Japanese, but you can get the point. Hachijojima in Japanese is 八丈島. The top of that long blue line is Tokyo. Here's a page in English all about Hachijojima. It looks to be a good place. I'll give you the low-down after the holiday. (Side note: I'm never taking a "vacation" again, only holidays).

Also, I've been coerced into joining the speech contest at Hosei. Not really sure what that entails. All I know is that so far there are only 2 participants. Me and this chinese guy that speaks Japanese pretty much fluently. Maybe I'll give some sort of controversial speech so I can be remembered better than just "that white guy who sucked". Good times.

Internet Crime Prevention Dinner

Yesterday was the sort of welcome dinner party in the dorm for the new people who moved in. They told us to come downstairs for the dinner but before that we had to listen to this police inspector talk about crime in Japan. Crime in Japan is somewhat limited to bike robberies and not being polite enough in conversation. So I didn't really know what they had to tell us that we hadn't figured out in the 8 months some of us have been here. He passes us out brochures about crime in the area, and sure enough, the majority of crime is bicycle robberies. And I found out later that number is probably inflated because Japanese police are crazy about bicycles. All bikes come with a serial number that police will stop you and check everynow and then, and if the number doesn't match the person riding the bicycle, they'll confiscate the bicycle and take the "owner" in. Even if you are borrowing a friend's they will still take it. Probably one of the most ridiculous systems put in place for bikes that for the majority cost about $80. But it gives the cops something to do and makes them feel they are helping out I guess.

So then the inspector puts in this video for us to watch. It felt very grade school, like where we watched some sort of educational psa video for everything the teacher's didn't want to talk about. The video turned out to be about internet crime. Like internet scams and meeting pedophiles online and such. The video was not only exactly like a horribly acted Japanese drama, but the subject had very little to do with the audience or 20 something foreign guys living in Tokyo. Oh well, makes them feel better maybe. Although I thought they would get up there and give some speech basically saying "we are watching you foreigners". I guess the video was better than some racist rant.

After the video we had "yakiniku". Yakiniku is like Japanese barbeque. (Here's a little explanation.) They ended up giving us a lot of food. Normally for yakiniku you just get a plate of meat and vegetables and such and grill it all together. Which they did, but they also gave us about a pound of beef along with it for each of us. And not even fatty beef. So I got my protein and iron I've missed out by eating 5000 varieties of seaweed.


Here's a picture of the meeting during the video.


Here's the only picture I got to take of the dinner before my camera died. And it's not even that good.