Pungency - name of a tea beverage found in most convenience stores

So instead of saying something like "wow, it's been ages since I last updated this blog" as I seem to do in every entry... I'm going to dive right in!

I have been up to a lot of hijinks lately and it has been fun. What have I been doing? Glad you asked...

1) I attended the Great Japan Beer Festival - it is a beer tasting festival held every year in various locations around Japan. The main goal of the festival is to taste a variety of craft brews... Granted I take it as a challenge to taste all the different craft brews in attendance. This year was my second year to attend the festival and it was great! There were different beers there this year than last year so I was a bit disappointed that I wasn't able to drink with the Italian brewers I met last year - oh well.

2) I went back to Shimizu-shi in Shizuoka. This place is near to my heart. Let me explain: during my first trip to Japan many moons ago, the school I came to Japan with had a sister school in Shimizu-shi and so when we came to Japan we came to Shimizu to do a mini exchange with the sister school (and then the students we stayed with stayed with us when they came to Vancouver). So! Late last month I went back to Shimizu and met the family I stayed with TEN years ago. We had sushi, chatted all day (only in Japanese - eek!) and looked at pictures from the trip. It was quite the trip down memory lane.

3) I attended Octoberfest in Yokohama. Again, this is a festival I went to last year and wanted to keep the tradition going. This day turned out to be one for the ages so I feel like I should write it down before I forget it all together haha. It all started off with a phone call from my co-worker asking me to go to Octoberfest with her and her husband... I of course agree and run out the door to meet them. The day started off slow with some polite beers with a bunch of couples and me... the single foreign one hahaha. Eventually I got a phone call from a friend who had gone to Octoberfest with me the year before to say he would be arriving shortly. I met up with him and our mutual friends and started playing drinking games (Eek!). We began to compare the current fest with the previous year's fest and remembered our favourite story from last year - our friend getting up on stage to sing polka to the massive crowd and then getting removed by security. We decided to do this again this year. Unfortunately when we got on the stage (just one other friend and I) the microphones were unplugged so we ended up having to yell quite loudly and only one group of people sang back to us. We were quickly removed from the stage.
Eventually once Octoberfest died down we hopped on a train for Shibuya. Oddly enough my friend and I got separated from the main group so he and I were listening to music (still very much in the singing mood) and singing to the rest of the train. Now if you have ever been on a Tokyo train you know that what I'm about to tell you is quite amazing. Some how... I managed to get about half our train car to both sway/dance AND sing "You can call me Al" by Paul Simon with me and my friend. This lasted for a little while until a major stop when my audience left and I lost interest.
And last but not least for my amazing Octoberfest day - I met these three stray Australians sitting by the side of the road... at this point my friend and I had purposely ditched the big group of friends we were with and my friend was off somewhere for the time being. So I sat with the Australians and started chatting with them and they offered me some champagne and then showed me these great costumes they bought... naturally in my state of mind I ask to wear one and they being cool guys agree. For a little while I was walking around the streets of Shibuya in a "Sento-kun" costume by myself until two of the Aussies decided to bust out their costumes and join me in a rilakuma and pikachu costume respectively. We were dancing in the streets and drinking champagne while the third Aussie and my friend watched (and of course various passersby).

I think my Octoberfest will go down in history as the coolest.

At the moment I'm a bit sick so I'm trying to take it easy so I can go out and do that all over again hahaha. I have to say, looking back on my adventures - sometimes I meet the coolest people and do some really silly things. I love the stories.

Ignore Alien Orders - T-shirt at the Yokohama Oktoberfest

Another few weeks have gone by and I am still very neglectful with my blog. Apologies as always.

What have I been up to you ask? Well, let me fill you in!
-Teaching English to the masses (of course) that keeps me out of trouble for maybe four days of the week. :)
-I read a book. I really enjoyed it. I dont know if anyone who reads this would but hey... it's called "Rant" by Chuck Palahniuk. It's a pretty intense, strange book but rather amusing at parts and very creative at the very least. Warning - not for people with a weak stomach.
-I have been partying. As always. I introduced a friend to my new favourite bar in Shibuya. (name is Rock no Kokoro) It's a half foreigner half local bar, huge focus on indie DJs, the crowd is good and there's no cover. Need I say more?
-I went to my first Oktoberfest. It was grand! A bunch of us from our training group all went together and had a great time. The weather was excellent so we sat our in the sun and drank a bunch of beer and danced a bit to polka. I have a great beer mug from it. (you paid 1000 yen as a deposit on the glass and then if you wanted to keep it you could. So I did! It's great for tea.)
-I went to my first hostess bar. As I was making my tipsy way back home from Yokohama's Oktoberfest I received an email from my friend Wataru asking me if I was free.
"Yes, of course... what are we doing?"
"Meet me in Tachikawa."
"I dont see why not"
Upon finding each other in Tachikawa we start wandering down one of the roads... We make our way into an elevator with his friend and then voila! It didn't dawn on me for a while that I was at a hostess bar. It wasn't very special. But I didn't pay for anything so what do I really care where we drank? All in all it was alright, the hostess bar's "Mama" was celebrating her birthday that night. I asked her how old she was and she swore she was 24 but then she kept forgetting and telling me she was 20, and then 21... I think she was probably more like 30.
-I had ramen three times last weekend and it was delicious. If you've never tried Ramen, I highly suggest you do. Try shoyu (soy sauce) base or tonkotsu (the kind of broth used). I hear it isn't too healthy for you so you should only eat it like once a week... It's probably relatively high in sodium. Oh well.

What's on the schedule for the next while?
- My friend is in town! He arrives on Monday so I must go find him at the airport...
-Halloween is afoot! My school has three Halloween parties I must participate in, let alone the actual day where I plan to be out in full freak force! I'm going to a Japanese concert that day, but either way I'll be in costume for it! My costume is being imported from Canada courtesy of Bryan (the visiting friend)

On the news front...
My Mum is coming to visit for New Years! I'm very happy that I will get to see a familiar face for the holidays and get to share my love for this country with her! Hopefully afterwards she'll understand why I'm here! :)

Cant Stop Grind - Cant remember where I saw it

I was at a street festival a few weeks back which was a hot bed for Engrish t-shirts, I wrote down some of the phrases I saw in my note pad on my iPhone which is where I keep getting these hilarious titles. Hope you're enjoying them.

This week is supposed to be quieter for me as all kids classes are cancelled but instead of that I have seven classes today (the maximum). Tomorrow is a national holiday though (Respect for the Aged Day I think?) so I dont have to teach tomorrow. I'm looking forward to the break in my week as I also have to come in on Sunday.

Last weekend was another busy one.
On Saturday one of my students took all the teachers and staff at our school out for Teppanyaki. Wow was it ever good! We had a FIVE course dinner! The chef was really funny and treated me like a celebrity or something because I had never had teppanyaki before. He moved things around and kept asking me questions, I think that made the other foreign teacher a bit mad.
On Sunday I walked around this park near where I live for a couple hours and got some massive blisters on my feet because of it lol. After that I went to a karaoke party hosted by a student and my old coworker. It was fun but really long! Around 3 in the morning we called it quits.
On Monday I went to the Great Japan Beer Festival in Yokohama. It was amazing! There were over 250 beers to try there, and you can sleep well knowing I tried my hardest to drink them all. Might have got about 50... in hind sight I probably should have kept a tally. I went with my old coworker and we ran into a student there which was very amusing for us. We ended up meeting a bunch of cool people who brew beers, got their business cards and one brewery invited us to drink on the docks with them after the festival, which we did for a while. Since we were in Yokohama (has one of the world's largest Chinatowns) we went for all you can eat Chinese food.

The pictures I put up are of Yokohama (the building where the Beer Festival was held- no idea what the name is), for some reason a robot was handing out all the awards to the winning breweries and finally... my glass of beer on the ceremonial block of ice that melts. I had more to put up but they have been lost somewhere in cyberspace for the time being. Will post once they arrive.

Cheers!