sorry~ long time, no blog

Wow, i've really been busy and well for lack of better words: unwanting to write a blog. But alas, today i feel up to typeing my face off here so settle in for a little update. So the last blog is from december, right before i hit my break. now that im back in school i have a bit more of a schedule to follow and thus time to write and post pictures etc. Over the break: -went to sapporo for the Winter festival (雪祭り) this is just a sample of what it was like, the sculptures were all building size, it was increadible. I went with some friends from my dorm and there was a bit of drama but ultimatly an unforgettable expirience involving snow, icy streets, and waking up next to a half nude englishmen every morning haha... moving right along, i also went to tokyo before i went on that trip, and in my humble oppinion there are far to many people there...like oodles. it just saps the life out of you seeing all the fashion and famous places. it also didnt help that the night before was spent sleeping on a night bus, which in characteristics for difficult sleeping, are rivaled only by that of coach seating on airplanes and sleeping in Jason Hemmings' tent with his dog at one of our many jr high youth retreats. oh lordy, the farts still resound in my mind. (oh man, i seriously hope jasons reading this hahaha)

next stop over the break was my brothers (loose term, Brian (blood brother), Tom (basically blood brother) and Nat (monster that brain washed me into thinking we were cousins. aka: cousin)

The trip before i indulge you with all the details, was awesome. They all came at the same time and we had a really great time together. Went to Kyoto and saw the traditional Japan. id actually never been there yet so it was a first time for me as well, though extremely hot. like, more so than i imagined cause it must have been 90 degrees on the bus and we were all sweating like dogs.

events that occured whilst they were here:
-awkward conversation with an old man (translater needed, i hate you Brian)
-awkward conversation with strangers ( i hate you brian)
-great food times with converstaions not appropriate for eating or public places but dooable because of the language barrier.
-tons and tons of walking and talking. catching up on old times, good jokes etc. -sneaking them into my dorm room for a night cause tom got our usual places' host sick with this awful cold.
-PLAYING TONS OF MONSTER HUNTER TWO!!!!
-laughing, flirting with tom...(hey man you got a pretty face), jokes, late night walks, over all good time. lets see...do i have any pictures...oo heres one with all of us at Ginkakuji (銀閣寺）which is seriously one of the coolest temple places ive ever seen.

oo i actually have a video too, but it doesnt seem like its working. its got these weird gardens with combed rocks and stuff. i thought it was cool anyway...hopefully that all worked. if it didnt ill just upload some of it at another time. I miss ya'll and i cant wait to come back. only 90 days left. hahaha weird to think about that, but still a joy in my heart. I hope your all doing well, I'll talk to you soon ^_____^

Merry Christmas!

Me at hardrock cafe in Nagoya, Japan. I thought it was cute so you all and indulge this picture with me :P

So the pictures are far to countless to upload one by one, so I have decided to assign them to packets and post the link to download them here. Enjoy:

http://www.mediafire.com/?dzmlzotavns
Those are from Miyajima Shrine

http://www.mediafire.com/?9yzfzfj5i3u
Here is Himeji Castle, most famous in japan i think...

http://www.mediafire.com/?2s2x1e1ksfn
This is my random snowboarding sessions. Once at Gifu-ken (gifu prefecture) and the other was at Nagano, where the 1998 winter olympics were held.

phew...this took a while, hope you enjoy the pictures! heres a few videos as well that might keep you occupied:



And especially for all of you, a ride down the mountain with yours truely ^___^



I love you all, and wish you a MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

With love from Japan,

Matt

Tiny Update

This is what i look like now. kind of spur of the moment, im tired of my hair being so long...wasnt really thinking that it was winter and kind of cold. It looks good though right?







They look good, right? its not curly hair but its not bad ya? heh i bet most of you are saying somthing like *AHHHHH* or some something along those lines.

enjoy it~

Its been a while--

....and, to my surprise, my last blog didnt show up. Thats odd, but...I expected as much.

Anyway! becuase it has been soooooo long I will put up some pictures as well!! hahah sounds good right?

Yep this is me...I've only been here for about 2 months and I'm already trying to kill them. I know that it seems like im being a little sexist so...

Yep. The men and the women have to go. Hey, don't look at me like that, those are the rules.

Yeash...just trying to be a politically correct killer here, besides, they're always speaking in this weird langauge that I havent quite caught onto...Well, I suppose the world wont miss two of em right?

<---this is a good friend of mine named Yuhei. Hes a great guy and a friggin genious at the guitar. I just watched one of his concerts at our School Festival. Which by the way was completely awesome because all of the food, and yes, there was a lot, was under 200yen (~$1.75).

That kind of brings me to a rant: the Japanese have a passion for mayonaise that exceeds life's reasonable bounds. Seriously. They have a corn and mayonaise pizza. I mean, can "Pizza" be "Pizza" if it doesnt have a ton of meet and/or the greasiest cheeze known to man? I'll kill anyone who makes the argument that this "Corn and Mayonaise Pizza" is good.

...hahah its funny that i said "I'll kill anyone who..." because as you have seen in the previous photos, I've already struck twice.

<>

Moving along: Life here has settled into life as usual. I can hold a steady conversation with a Japanese person, give or take a few major grammatical errors, and one massive miscommunication per conversation.

There was one in particular that caused me quite a bit of greif. You see, we have this thing called japanese language lounge, which is basically a place were you can go once a week to talk nothing but Japanese for about an hour or two. After a while of me being there, comming every week, talking as much as possible etc, of course I made a few friends. Of which there were two girls, and as the situation would be (thank the Good Lord for his humor), they were best friends. And if you have ever been formaly introduced to me, that means that i have probably forgotten your name at LEAST 4 times and re-introduced myself, save Hannah because shes stunningly gorgeous and family because i have to see them often enough that if i forgot it would make things entirely too awkward. (haha i love you brian :P) Anyway, so these girls name's were Kana and Chisato. If you have read any of my earlier blogs you know exactly and percisely how i feel about japanese names. So about a week ago, i walked in and started this conversation in japanese very casually:

Me: "Heyyy everyone, oh Kana! how are you?!"

Person who i thought was Kana: "KANA?! DID YOU SAY KANA!"

i would like to note at this point in tim that my eyes finally decieded to wake up from their mid-day nap and get their lazy carcasses working! unfortunatly in the fray of catching up on work, they seemed to have sent the picture and a chicken scratch of a name up to my brain, which has a hard time reading japanese names in the first place. Befuddled and confused my brain decieded to trust its first instincts and give it another go with its first choice.

Me: "Yeah, your names Kana isnt it?"

Person who I thought was Kana: "YOU! YOU THINK MY NAME IS KANA!? HOW RUDE!"

At this point I would like to point out that this was Chisato I was talking to, and Kana as a matter of fact, had yet to show up. Seeing that the Good Lord has quite the sense of humor, he chose this point to place that woman, in the room right as Chisato said her last sentence.

Me: " oh no..."

Chisato: "Oi, Kana, He just called me Kana! He completely..."

Kana: "AH YOUR TERRIBLE!!"

Me: " ahh I was mistaken, sorry sorry. Sorry, your not Kana your..."

Note: I'm thinking of trading in my brain seeing as this one is either retarded or keeps puting itself in dangerous situations like this. Isnt it like some kind of biological law that your body organs are supposed to enhance the body when in danger? fight or flight reflex? Alright...alright, needless to say, i blanked. 3 weeks of seeing these women for an hour each, and i remember one name, call it to the wrong girl, forget that girls name then set myself up to speak out the name and boom, i come up blank....

do you think....

na....

my body isnt trying to kill me is it?

ughh anyway thats how alot of conversations start off. I'm getting to be come a dangerously good name avoider mostly because i never remember. On the flip side, if i do remember your name then its all that more exciting for me to use it ^_^

Well sorry to say it but one of the only reasons i wrote this blog is because i was avoiding homework that must be done. See ya soon gents~

Kabuki Play's and Busy Kick-Ball Day's

Tests, Denny's, & Japanese Pennies.

Ok, so I'm going to whine again about the fact that we have tests everyday. Its a little aggravating but I guess its good in a way. At least if they test us everyday here, that means that every night we will all actually open our books instead of trying to start a top-eachother-on-how-long-it-has-been-since-I-opened-My-book contest. In that regard I am much more focused on my studies which is really nice. This is the kind of motivation that alot of people need in my personal oppinion. When I went to school in bellingham I think my record stands at like 3 months before I opened a textbook for a class, and that was before the final. (of course, not for my Japanese class, some other random class that wasn't any good for anything. Some English course or some such like that). I think the longest I go here without opening my book is like, half hour or so...you'd think that when you go to sleep you wouldnt be reading it but that is very ちがう、or very wrong. This book binds itself to your mind and forces you to open its pages every half and hour, concious or not. I had a dream the other night about being home with all my friends and we were all going to a sweet swimming hole near my old house, guess who decided to come along? My text book. No joking here, Minna no Nihongo decided to pop in and have a swim for about a half hour or so before it tried to drown me in vocabulary.
This weekend wasnt so bad though, I got to go and do alot of different things: of which included going to a Denny's. For some reason unknown to me, Denny's gradually becomes a better restaraunt as you go further east of Washington. At least thats my theory because by the time you go all the way around the world to Japan, Denny's becomes a severely nice place to eat. I had the best chef salad I think I've ever had (appologies to Jason "Hem-dog", the best chef beknownst to man, he has yet to make me one) in my whole life, and along with it some freshly, and I mean freashly, baked frenchfries. Now I know you're probably thinking "thats a barrel-o-lies, frenchfries never get made fresh" Oh no. They do. And its gooooood. My friends to the left and right all had nice lasangna's and quite a zesty bowl of ramen. It fills you up perfectly here too. You pay alot for the food and dont get very much but its almost worth it because you dont leave like...how do you say... ill from the ammount of food you have just consumed.
Along with that note, anything you buy here makes sure to be some odd type of number to make sure that you get at least 1円 (yen) penny back, with a max of 4円 pennies back. These are essentially useless, like the American penny, except that even if you take a giant jar full of them to the bank, they wont exchange them into money. So since I've been here about a month I have already amassed quite a few of these seemingly plastic pennies, and I pland to get some hot glue and make a tower, and then ironically sell this masterpeice of mine for about the number of pennies it takes to build it....

Hahaha--I know, I know "how devilishly tricky, Matt"..."your so smart Matt"..."That is the greatest plan that has ever existed ever!" Right? Right?

...Shut up, I know your not laughing. Well you might be but its not real laughing. Oh, dont try to say its for real, I know the truth. Oh yeah...I know. Watch yourself.

...yeah...moving on...

So theres an update for ya, sorry that I havent been on top of it lately. Hopefully people still stop by and check up every now and then. I'll resend and email just in case. Might need to cut my updates to the begining of the week and the end. w/e I'll figure it out. Soon there will be pictures too since I'm going to get a cell phone/5megapixel camera....Ahhh I love Japan. Cheers~

Short and Sweet

Ok, today's blog is going to be short on accout that I'm about to go to the zoo for the rest of the day (I'm really excited about it...they have live kangaroos~.

As I was walking around on my new school campus I fell upon one of those hole-in-the-wall kind of places. Actually, to be fair, it wasnt really a hole-in-the-wall more as it was a fairly large structure in the center of the centermost building on campus. Lets not stop to marvel at the severe lack of my perceptive abilities and get to the punch line: Its called "Ju:" Being the natural born American I am, I pronounced it just like it is spelled with a "J" sound combined with an "ew". Yep, thats right, the restaraunt/cafateria name is "Jew". This restaraunt has many classic options and selections of cafeteria food. Anything from Ju Burgers to Ju Fries and you can top it off with a big, unsweetened Ju Tea. Theres also a tasty Jew Ramen (whoops I ment Ju ::wink::).

After my eyes met with this place I couldn't help but laugh and make all the Ju comments that I had in store. "Hey guys want to go hit the Ju?" "Sorry, I'm German, probably shouldn't" "Man...that Ju is so RICH with flavor" "Maseltav to the Ju, the best restaraunt on campus!"

Apperently my fellow Japanese classmates were none the wiser. They started comming up with all kinds of stuff like "No no its pronounced "yuu", thats how everyone says it". Hahaha, yeah right. Man that was a good laugh.

Anyway, I hope your all doing well. Take care!