Rodent Afterimages - Week 8 (July 1 - July 7)

Ugh, I'm coming off of a bad day, let me tell you. Literally. I didn't mean that as a figure of speech. There's nothing worse then starting the week with 5 back to back classes that you have to build props for in an extremely rushed 1 1/2 hours leading up to it.

On the plus side, my jogging was pretty awesome tonight. There's something about running at night that makes it easier for me. Maybe the lower temperature or something. But I'm getting ahead of myself...Roll pretentious, mysterious title...

Rodent Afterimages

Week 8

And we're off.

As of Thursday night I'll have been here for 2 months on the dot. As a little celebration, I'm going to do an extra post that's all Q&A. A friend of mine already has a number of questions lined up, so if anyone else wants to get an answer to a question about my time here in Nippon, please either leave a comment here or on my wall at Facebook. You can also email me at melloyellocantello@gmail.com.

So last week was quite busy. I have a few students that are coming to class much more frequently then usual. This is causing me to be very busy, which really sucks, but makes the time fly, which is nice.

I think the best part of the week, in the classroom anyway, took place in my last class of the week. I finish the week, as I may have mentioned previously, with a couple of elderly gentlemen who are basically fluent in English. We discuss Newsweek articles, which makes for a pretty engaging class. This week we were talking about an article on the Sichuan earthquake and one of the guys told me a that the Chinese tell. It goes something like this (it might have been funnier at the time): The Chinese say "it's best not to tax the rich too much or we might end up Communists like the Japanese". Apparently the difference between the rich and the poor in Japan is one of the lowest in the entire world. Boy, that's ironic now, isn't it?

Outside of work I had an interesting interaction with my next door neighbour. He's a mysterious fellow who owns an Xbox 360 (which is a rarity in and of itself in Japan) and has a tendency to play loud action games at all hours of the night. This pissed off the former occupant of my apartment, who complained to Leo Palace about the noise level. Me, I don't mind so much. I'm used to sleeping with noise in the background from my many years living on Besserer street. The sound of spent brass hitting the ground is a hell of a lot less annoying then the incessant sirens outside of your front door. Last week I realized my neighbour was playing Half-Life 2, because, hey, I know the sounds from the game THAT well. The day after, I heard him playing Portal. This man obviously appreciates the merits of western game design.

And my computer just crashed. Thank god that Blogger autosaves your posts.

Anyways, I decided to leave a note in my esteemed comrade in Combine elimination's mailbox. It read something like this:

Half-Life 2 is awesome!

- Your neighbour.

About three days later I got a response in the form of the note at the top of this post. I'm going to leave him another telling him that I don't care about the noise and ask if Portal was a triumph and a HUGE SUCCESS.

I'll talk a little more about the week's activities in the Q&A post.

Saturday night, as per usual, was party time. This week the destination was Machida, a city about 30 minutes south of Shinjuku. The annoying thing for me was that, because of my location on the Chuo Line, I actually had to travel about 20 minutes in one direction before transferring onto another line and heading 40 minutes down to Machida. That wasn't so hot.

The party, on the other hand, was.

It was being hosted by a man of high character, my trainer, Ben. He and a few other teachers/acquaintances pooled their cash and rented the room above an Irish pub called the Covent Garden. It was a little tight because it was absolutely PACKED with gaijin, which was really cool! There was a fairly large contingent of teachers that I had previously met, including the woman, Karen, who escorted me from Shinjuku to my apartment all those 8 weeks ago. We joked a little about how messed up I was when I got off the plan (see post for week 1).

I also met my new Area Leader while being decidedly inebriated. Fortunately, she was too, so that's probably alright. I'll brag about my slick dance moves when she calls my school later this week. I was also surprised to see Ben DJing when I first entered the club. He didn't even inform us that this was his intention! He was pretty good too, kept the party hopping.

Oh I should mention that the players in this particular adventure, besides my intrepid self, were Don, Melissa and Yuka, who are all no less intrepid than I.

Mmmm, besides that it was the typical night out. I danced my heart out (although a little less enthusiastically then usual, after all, I might have to work with these people some day). The lowest point of the night was when I asked some guy what he did for a living. His answer was "I am a player." Dude then proceeded to hit on every woman in the club. That oozes class. It was the reject table for him later on in the night, which was damned appropriate.

I got home at my usual 7-8 AM and passed the hell out, exhausted but happy.

The next day rose to bad weather and not much in the way of plans. I bounced out the door at 4:30 on my way to Shibuya for a few drinks with some coworkers I had never met. We met at a British Pub called the Hobgoblin. I've been informed by Steve, who hosted the shindig, that it's a chain in Britain. They do make pretty damn good fish and chips. I also had my first Guinness here, and it was pretty good, especially with food. Also some of this bizarre Magner's cider stuff. It was pretty good, although I think Sean disapproves. The drinks were in honor of having bested all other comers in the field of Self Study Focus book sales, which I did very little to help with, having just arrived in country. Most of the teachers from my area couldn't come, unfortunately. It was still a nice, short day.

I got to bed early Sunday because Monday was a big day.

I was going to Disney Sea!

Yeah, I'm as underwhelmed as you are. I saw Disney Sea before I saw the Imperial Palace. I'm just complaining for the fun of it though. It was actually a pretty neat day. Disney Sea, which is right beside Disney Land on the bay of Tokyo, is a little bit more adult themed. It's kind of a weird mishmash of Epcot in Florida and maybe the Universal studios tour. Fairly impressive though. There were a few good rides, including Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Crystal Skull, which inspired the most recent movie. If it worked for Pirates of the Caribbean, right? This particular ride was remarkable for, while waiting in line, a westerner dressed up in an Indiana Jones getup escorted some Japanese park patrons to the front of the line and boldly proclaimed: "I'm Indiana Jones! Don't worry, I'm here to help!" He then promptly left, harried by a barrage of snickers from our expedition into the temple. I have since remarked about three times that this guy, in those five seconds of speaking, seemed more flustered then Harrison Ford did in all four movies that bear the Indiana Jones title. Tower of Terror, Journey to the Center of the Earth, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Things along those lines occupied the rest of the real estate in the park.

The weirdest thing about the whole trip was how I kept on getting really weird deja vu from almost every area we explored. I think it was the artificiality of the whole thing. I'll point out that, in particular, the section around the 20,000 Leagues ride, which was set in the middle of a Volcano, reminded me really, really strongly of Bioshock, a game I played just before coming to Japan. This game was also the one that prompted me to peruse the insane ramblings that occupy the pages of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. The fact that it was one of the most uninterestingly written things I have ever had the pleasure of reading and it's length of (I think) 1,400 pages might give you an idea of how much I liked this game. This section of Disney Sea really struck me as similar, especially with the whole deep sea dive theme.

The other one that reminded me of a game was the Middle Eastern section which, although heavily Alladinized, was realistic enough to bring back a few fleeting images of Assassin's Creed. Oh, and Indiana Jones reminded me of Tomb Raider, but that's no surprise.

After pondering it for a few minutes, I think I figured out why I felt this deja vu in these sections of the park. I hadn't felt any deja vu for Tokyo itself, other then a few times in Shibuya because I've played a game that was set there. I think the reason Disney Sea reminded me of other things so much was that everything was artificial. The artists that designed the park and designed the games that I've played were probably thinking along similar lines when the sketched out their concept art. It made a lot of attractions in the park much more interesting for me.

Disney Sea was pretty un-Disney. There weren't many characters out and they didn't really occupy center stage anywhere except during the first musical show of the day that we witnessed. The narrative of this thing was bizarre...mostly because it was in Japanese and I couldn't understand any of it. What I do know is it was called "The Tale of Mythica" which is pronounced much different when spoken by a native Japanese speaker. From what I gathered it was some kind of underwater kingdom that was in trouble and which was subsequently saved by Mickey and Friends.

Whatever.

It was pretty impressive, I guess, until you listened to the lyrics of the song which were more sucrose-loaded then the finest of Canadian Maple Sugar. Capitalized. The nighttime show was much better and kind of looked like a boss fight from Final Fantasy. That was much cooler.

We ate dinner on board the U.S.S. Columbia, a fake ship built in a counterfit harbor in an artificial America. The food was pretty good, and the dining room was very art-deco. All the diners were very out of place in comparison to the clothes being worn by the waiters and everything. We did have a nice bottle of Robert Mondavi though.

Ultimately Disney Sea was, though I hate to admit it, a ton of fun. I stand by my general dislike of Disney due to their odious (yes! favorite word used! this post gains +50 bonus points) policy of focusing marketing at children who don't have the sense to say 'no'. It's all in the people that you bring really (Don, Zoey, Melissa, Ben and Rowena). Very fun day, especially since the poor weather kept most of the people away. We were later informed that Disneyland proper had 2 hour wait most of the day. I think we made the right choice. And that's that scratched off the list of things to do.

And that's also another post scratched off the list. Feel free to post a question on my Facebook, on this Blog or send an email to melloyellocantello@gmail.com.

Thanks for reading once again, stay tuned for the extra post on Thursday.

Ian "Mello Yello" Cantello