Yakiniku: Grilling Me Softly

Have you ever gone to a restaurant after a long day at work and thought to yourself, “Boy, I’d really like to grill my own meats tonight.” Well if it’s a Yakiniku restaurant you’re going to, then gosh darn it to heck, you’re in luck! Yaki means ‘grilled’ (basically) and Niku means ‘meat’ and when you put them together, you get both of those words together! Although, of course there are veggie options if you’d like to grill some cabbage and onions instead. Me and a couple friends of mine recently went to a restaurant that offers Yakiniku services called Ajisai in Kusu, Japan. While there, minding our own business and eating our own food (I think I was eating Ramen or something) these guys at the bar started talking with us and eventually they joined us at our table so that we could grill some meats together! It all happened so quickly, I’m still recovering.

We enjoyed some beef and some chicken fat. It was a delightful experience. As you can see, in the middle of the table is a grill, and no its not electric, there is real blue flame heating it up. And people sometimes drink a lot of alcoholic beverages and use wooden chopsticks to stir around and pick things up off of this thing. I just cut out the middle man and picked up everything with my teeth. My face got severely burned. Just kidding. Once, I went to a camp site with some coworkers in Yufu City, and we grilled up all kinds of steaks and vegetables on these two very long grills. It was so gosh darn fun watching them light a bunch of wood on fire before we started cooking. If you ever get the chance, I highly recommend it.

While with my family, we went to a friends restaurant and enjoyed a more relaxing Yakiniku experience. As you can see out the window, its all lush and green outside. Also, about a mile up the road is a Dude Ranch. That is not a joke, and I still want to go there. A Japanese Dude Ranch. That just sounds amazing. But this restaurant that rests right on the property of the husband and wife who own it is what I really want to talk about. It’s called Kachoshi, and it is magical and quite hidden deep in the forests of Kokonoe Town. Sometimes her children even hang out with us and we all talk about bulldozers and firetrucks. I’ve been there three times now, and the woman speaks fluent English and if you can find it (after you find Kokonoe Town, of course), you should definitely check it out yourself.

Canal City: A Canal Runs Through It

Before moving to Japan, I knew I was going to be spending a week in the most glorious and quite possibly second largest metropolitan area in Japan, Fukuoka City. I like how I say “quite possibly” like I actually know what I’m talking about. It makes me chuckle. About an hour from somewhere in Japan, I’m sure, lies the very foreigner friendly city that has everything a tourist would ever need, without the zany, sometimes horrific oddities that Tokyo has. While everywhere in Japan is arguably foreigner-friendly, its still a nice descriptive term to use and I won’t apologize for using it. What I will apologize for is how long it took me to check out this impressive shopping mall, Canal City. Darn near five months! Frankly, it’s quite despicable and I’m sorry. Moving on! It’s a multi-story complex that has free, live entertainment and during the summer has water shows in its canal every hour. I’ve been here twice, once with a friend and the second time with my family, and I would return here every weekend if I could.

The first time I went there, I saw this circus act magic show that was done by these three eastern Europeans. It was funny, interactive, entertaining and completely free. And I loved every free moment of it. My second time here, I caught the equally as free, but not as entertaining water show. But let me return to the circus act real quick…check out those short shorts. And also check out the audience member wearing the Russian hat and fake mustache just hanging out as the dudes run around him, hands locked. Let’s just take a moment to appreciate that to its full entirety. In all seriousness though, it was a very funny and entertaining show. And the coolest part was that they were doing it in fluent Japanese. I want to be able to entertain people in Japan someday while speaking their language. I tried writing a song in Japanese once, and it just did not translate over well. I’m still working on the language. But back to the story!

Both times I went, though, I experienced the greatest thing that Canal City has to offer. Ramen Stadium! It’s on the fifth or sixth floor, I don’t know, its up there and its a giant lobby with about a dozen Ramen restaurants all offering different styles and variety of Japan’s favorite (thinner) noodle dish. As you can see from this picture, …and because I’m telling you…its very common to add (barely) hard-boiled eggs to ramen dishes. And yes, there are noodles under there. Ramen comes in all shapes and sizes from soy sauce flavor to curry flavor and most things in between. It’s quite a dazzling experience all around. You walk up into the lobby of this place and you choose which restaurant you want to eat at. You then go up to that establishments ticket machine and place your order. Yes, by pushing buttons. After you receive your tickets, you stand in a red velvet roped off line until its your turn in the hot seats! Both times the ramen was amazing, and both times I needed a lot more napkins then the average person would ever need eating a noodle dish, but come on…chopsticks.

Canal City is more than just circus shows and ramen though. Its full of all sorts of shops tailoring to many needs. They have this amazing snack shop somewhere on the 3rd floor or something that has staple snacks from all over the world. This is very important because most snacks that you love from your country are not very available anywhere else in Japan. So I highly recommend visiting that snack shop. Unfortunately I don’t remember what its called, so I guess you’ll just have to go there to find it yourself. 😉 That’s a very creepy looking winky face. I apologize.

A Bridge Too High

Somewhere behind the clouds, way above the chimney tops in the land of the ice and snow you will find the world’s tallest suspension bridge. Well, at least the tallest suspension footbridge in Oita, Japan. If heights are a thing that you love to hate, but love enough to stomach for about 2 miles one way and then 2 miles back, then you need to check this bridge out! As you can see from the photo, you can easily touch both railings if you were standing in the middle of the bridge, and as an added ‘throat in your stomach’ bonus, if you look down, you can see right through the bottom. Also, if you jump or run, the wind might just carry you away, so I would recommend you not run or jump while on this bridge. You can literally see it swaying back and forth if the wind is blowing hard enough.

I have been here at least three times. It’s called the Yume Otsuribashi, and if you think the name is hard to pronounce, then you are correct. It is pretty hard to pronounce. But it also is very inexpensive, at 500 yen to cross it both ways. Don’t lose your ticket though, because they do check it at both ends. Getting to this bridge is just about as fun as crossing the bridge itself. Especially if you drive a Kei Car. I drive a Nissan Dayz, which if you don’t know what that is, just imagine the backseat of a minivan, that’s my entire car. It generally takes about 20 minutes to drive up the mountain to the bridge and some of those inclines damn near make the car completely vertical.

About halfway up is a restaurant with a very beautiful view and staff members who wear face paint. I really wish I had gotten a picture of the greeter at this place. He looked pretty awesome. I ate some Niku Udon with a few friends and then we trekked the rest of the way up to the main, suspended attraction. Once you enter the gate onto the grounds, you have to crane your neck to even catch a view of the bridge. There is a huge parking lot with a line of stores and souvenir shops to check out. Then you get to the ticket window, where you pay the 500 yen and say a few hail Mary’s. Then it’s off to the races! But like I said, don’t actually race across the bridge, I don’t think its a good idea. Once you’re on, everywhere you look from side to side and down below, is just the lushest green. If you really strain your eyes, you can see a couple waterfalls to either side.

Across the bridge is another restaurant where I think I ate hot soba noodles the first time I visited. Then about a half-mile up the road from there is a small souvenir shop that looks like a person’s house, and a small box shrine. Around the shrine, tied to tree branches were these pieces of paper. Sometimes people make wishes or draw fortunes at shrines and tie them to tree branches so they either come true, or the fortune gets better. It’s never worked for me, but I think I’m forgetting to click my heels or something. In the souvenir shop, I found and purchased my first pair of sunglasses in Japan. They were these really cool cop shades. I was super stoked about it. Also, I apologize for all of the really sub-par pictures. This was back in 2016 before my smartphone days. You’re looking at photos taken on a flip phone that I then re-took with a digital camera to put on the internet. Technology is fascinating.

On the way home, the second time around, I couldn’t stop singing “I’m a Survivor, I’m not gonna give up!” or however the lyrics go. Also, for those of you not familiar with yen prices, 500 yen is about $6.00 USD, which isn’t bad to cross a nearly 2 mile bridge, that according to this diagram is taller than Godzilla. It is serene once you make it to the middle and you still haven’t died yet. I can’t really remember much about the third time I went there. Aliens, maybe. But regardless, I recommend checking it out if you are ever in Kokonoe Town in Oita, Japan. It’s gets my officially exclusive rating of ‘Taller than Godzilla’ outta 10!

From Arabica With Love

What’s more exciting than seeing another Bond villain with a fake accent? Not much actually, but for the sake of this post I’m going to have to say coffee. The nectar of the Gods that may make you more loopy than the helicopter scene in From Russia With Love in the ADR booth during post-production. You know what I mean…Automatic Dialog Replacement. You  know…because you gotta loop the video while the actors replace the dialog because of the sound and the….well, its all very technical. But what isn’t technical, is my love for coffee. Moving on!

The months leading up to my great, Japanese adventure I was legitimately concerned that I may have to say goodbye to coffee as I knew and loved it forever, or at least until I returned back to America. I would find myself sneaking tear-soaked glances at my Keurig coffee machine thinking that the end was drawing near. It was going to be tea from here on out. Even while still on the plane as they wheeled out the green tea flavored ice cream, I felt myself screaming out in terror, just flailing about in wanton recklessness. The staff was not very pleased with me. But I was very pleased to find out after being in Japan for a day or so that coffee was not only a thing in Japan, but it was absolutely everywhere.

From wacky themed Tokyo cafes to small privately owned ‘kissatens’, coffee is enjoyed all over this great country. And, I don’t know if it was from shock or sheer stupidity, but I first started noticing cold and hot cans of black coffee for the first time in Japan. I mean, I remember drinking the Starbucks cold mocha cans in America, but I’d never seen straight black coffee in an aluminum can before. Prior to coming here I thought that coffee would be hard to find and even harder to enjoy, but boy was I wrong. Dead wrong. There are more different flavors of coffee in the convenience store cooler than there are people in Valley Springs, California. Ok, maybe that’s not so true anymore, but it would have been true in 1996! I was amazed at how many different flavors of coffee they have in this country. Humorously enough, I only drink black coffee, but its still interesting.

And while its fun and exciting to enjoy coffee out on the go, its much more intimate and sensual to enjoy it in the privacy of your own home. I probably could have come up with better adjectives, but oh well. My favorite coffee inspired invention to enjoy in the home has got to be the disposable drip coffee. It’s just the greatest thing ever. You open up the package and there is a filter with coffee grounds inside. You then open it up and attach it to the top of your mecha kawaii kitty-chan coffee mug. Then you pour hot water into the filter and coffee drips into your mug. It’s just great stuff.

There’s also this other thing that I received from a friend of mine at a party. It’s a hard, plastic drip coffee device that you place on top of your mug. You obviously need your own coffee grounds for this one and she gave me an entire cannister of Starbucks brand coffee grounds to go along with it. I have since exhausted the contents of it, but the tin works as a nice ride cymbal so I kept it. I don’t know why I expected my Japanese adventure to be lacking in the arabica and robusta department, but I did and I feel oh, so ashamed about it. I really should be thanking Yemen for this, since that is thought to have been where coffee was first enjoyed as a beverage, but I believe it was the Dutch who shared coffee with Japan first back in the Edo period. But regardless of whom shared what with whom first, I am eternally grateful all the same.

 

 

Coca-Cola Plus What?!

There comes a time in every one’s life where the need to combine something spectacular with something else a little less spectacular, becomes incessantly necessary. Coca-Cola recently came out with a beverage in Japan called Coca-Cola Plus Coffee and I sent my research team on site to the local Family Mart to find out more about this mysteriously named beverage. What’s in it? Is it even a beverage? Or is it a portal to another world buried meticulously underneath a pull tab?  After my team was done gathering all of the necessary information, I sent them back to the store to get me the beverage, so that I may enjoy it for the first time myself. I then lost all of my research and team in a zeppelin fire. It was tragic. But I did happen to capture a video of myself trying the drink for the first time. I even wrote a song about.

 

 

A Tale of Two Equal Sized Lengths of Wood

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. It was also Colonel Mustard in the library with the candlestick. I swear, I saw him do it. Since the beginning of time, and coincidentally the dawn of man… I think it happened in the late ’60s around the time the film Cool Hand Luke came out. And they thought he couldn’t eat 50 eggs. Boy, did he make them feel silly. Ok, fine. Continuing the blog here, boss. Sorry for interrupting it with another pointless reference to something completely unrelated here, boss.

Since the world began, creatures have needed sustenance to get them through their pointless, miserable days. But, on a lighter note, some of that sustenance was probably fairly delicious. And after eating this food every day with their every day hands (in the case of humans), tools started being invented to act as a middle man between the hands and the mouth for reasons still being studied and determined. Science takes a while, what with all the research that needs whatever.

Coming from America, I grew up eating with forks and spoons and knives, oh my. But now that I live in Japan, I’ve had the privilege of getting used to eating with a new kind of utensil. Chopsticks are called ‘Ohashi’ in Japanese, and they can be quite daunting for people who may have only practiced using them for about two months before moving here. When I would go out to sushi restaurants in California, I would eventually have to end up stabbing the food to get it into my mouth because I didn’t have the patience to eat with chopsticks. Learning how to use them wasn’t the easiest thing I’ve ever had to do. Although it was a lot easier than learning how to Dougie. For me, at least.

It was especially hard because for the last 31 years, I never learned how to properly hold a pencil. See, it looks like I’m trying to do a monkey’s taxes with a sledgehammer. So, whenever somebody tries to teach me how to use chopsticks, and their first step is to start by holding it like you would a pencil, I would already be, as Charles Bronson would say, “Gosh darn shoot-howdy out of luck”. I mean, don’t get me wrong, you could technically get by with not using chopsticks in Japan. A lot of restaurants do offer forks and spoons, and they do liberally hand out plastic sporks at all convenience stores, but I still think its a good idea to learn how to use them anyway. To be honest, they kind of turn eating into a more enjoyable experience for me. It’s kind of like playing a videogame just to get food into your mouth, although not at all because that’s a terrible analogy and I’m sorry for making it.

I have several pairs at my house that I used to use a lot more than I do now. I even have a chopstick case that says ‘Everything will be all right’, because as we all know, everything will be all right. Eventually. Maybe. Either way, I have some plastic pairs and some wooden pairs. I’m pretty sure that wooden chopsticks are generally made out of bamboo. When I was still living in America, I used to practice with M&M’s. One at a time, I would place them from one plate to another. Sometimes, the M&Ms wouldn’t make it to the other plate. They would fall right into my mouth. Ok, most of the time that would happen. I also watched a whole bunch of videos to learn the finger placements, but I still don’t do it right. Just yesterday, one of my coworkers took the chopsticks out of my hand during lunch and placed them back into my hand where they were supposed to be.

Before I end this blog, I want to take you all on a trip. Let’s venture down no-no street to Faux-pas town and talk about some ‘Ohashi oh no you didn’ts’. Here are three things, you should definitely never do with your chopsticks.

1.) Don’t stick them in your food. Especially your rice. You should lay them delicately side by side across your dish and/or bowl and/or table and/or flat thing.

2.) Do not pass food from your chopsticks to another person’s chopsticks.

3.) Don’t tap them together or on your table like they are drumsticks.

I’m only here to tell you what not to do, if you want to know the reasons why you shouldn’t do these things, go visit someone else’s blog. I have to edit myself into more stupid pictures for future blog posts. So, with that, thank you for reading and have a wonderful day!

Say “Joyfull” One More Time

Imagine, if you will, a place, nay…a location, where you always feel welcome and everybody knows your name. A venue that caters to your every wish and desire. A spot that always hops. A blip to never skip. A nook that never crannies. Well, aside from the fact that only half of this blog makes sense yet, such a place does exist! Albeit nearly everything I’ve said about it so far is misleading and untrue.  Nobody knows my name at any Joyfull I’ve ever been to. It’s a lovely little 24-hour (in most locations) hotspot called Joyfull and it can be found in nearly every city and town in Japan. Although, you won’t find Cliff the mailman here, you may be able to find seasoned cod roe spaghetti. The place itself is very reminiscent of a Denny’s or an IHOP (if you’re from the states) and they have everything from Pizza and Fries to Lobster Bisque. I’m kidding about the lobster bisque. Joyfull doesn’t offer lobster bisque.

 

They even have Caesar Salads, regular Spaghetti, Japanese fare like rice and fish, and a ton of other things that may remind you of home (again, if you’re from the states). I’m sure they have things reminiscent of other countries too. They also have this neat thing called a hamburger, except its not a hamburger. Get this…it’s called a hamburger steak, and its just a beef patty with some gravy/steak sauce on it. It’s all the rage in japan. And the “Cheese in Burger’ is even better, but again its not a hamburger. It’s exactly what it sounds like. A hamburger patty, with cheese injected inside.

Enough shenanigans! Joyfull is more than just a restaurant to me. Joyfull is a place full of wonderful and yeah, I’ll say it…even Joyfull memories. It’s where the good times have often rolled. But don’t get too loud during the good times because they will tell you to quiet down. I’ve met people that have become great friends at a Joyfull. I’ve played cards at a Joyfull. I’ve seen a family from Kansas at a Joyfull. I’ve hung out with law enforcement at a Joyfull. I’ve enjoyed concert afterparties at a Joyfull. I’ve asked for salt at a Joyfull. It’s just gets me so emotional. In the nearly three years I’ve been in Japan, I’ve easily walked into one of these restaurants at least a hundred times all over the country.

There was a time where I frequented this place once a week with my friends. I constantly and consistently ordered the Chicken Nanban Dinner (Pictured above) and the lady always remembered that I like my rice how I like my [insert inappropriate joke here]. Large and/or heavy, whatever the translation of “omoi” is in English. Such a nice lady. I think this is even the first place I ate lunch at in Japan. That first week of my life is still a little foggy in my memory banks though because of the jet lag and all of the new things I was experiencing.

My favorite part about this restaurant though, takes place before you even start eating. There’s this button on every table that kinda looks like a pokeball, and you press it when you’re ready to order. It’s makes this ‘ding dong’ sound and its so satisfying. I feel like a kid hitting all of the buttons in an elevator whenever I order food at a Joyfull. Have I said Joyfull enough in this blog post?

Also, a post about Joyfull would not be complete without talking about the golden tickets. Yeah, every time you pay, with your receipt they give you this golden ticket. What is it for you ask? It’s good for one special tour of the Joyfull ‘Land of Joy’ Factory in Alameda County, California. It’s pretty neat. Except its not neat, because its not true. They do hand you something with your receipt and it is yellow (in some places), but its actually a coupon for their drink bar. I probably have about eighty of them in a closet somewhere.

A Fistful of Yen

I didn’t feel like Clint Eastwood when I got on that plane, nor was my yen anywhere in or around my fists, but I did feel pretty cool that day. That’s right, you heard it here first sports fans. I took three planes from Richmond (VA) to Fukuoka (JP) with 500,000 Japanese yen strapped to my waist like a secret agent parachuting into a strip club. Although I’ve seen enough James Bond movies to figure that the strippers probably tip secret agents and not the other way around. I’m going to stop talking about strippers now. I don’t know why I didn’t think of parachuting into a Casino first. That would have made more sense. I’m also not sure why a secret agent would have cash money strapped to his waist  instead of a cool gadget or something. And when I say it was ‘strapped to my waist’, I mean that literally. 500,000 JPY securely nestled right above my own family jewels.

I bought a thing on the internet called a Money Belt. It’s some new-fangled technological advancement of science and mankind. It’s just a fanny pack for stealth purposes, really. But a fanny pack you should only put flat things in, or else it defeats the whole purpose of trying to conceal it underneath your clothing. I bought mine in a tasteful nude color, mostly because I had planned on flying 18 hours 30,000 feet above the ground completely nude and I wanted to match. Of course I wore clothing though, and my money belt helped me traverse half the globe with the amount of cash it would take to purchase two fist-sized pieces of Kobe Wagyu beef firmly and safely concealed under my shirt. Probably. If you’re out of the loop, Kobe Wagyu beef is just really expensive beef.

Moving on! I exchanged the money while I was still in America and ordered it at my local bank. Since Japanese yen wasn’t really on high demand in Virginia, they had to order my yen from what I can only hope was a Samurai guarded Japanese Castle Bank with cute anime statues adorning its inner and outer courtyards. In case you were wondering, this is what Japanese yen looks like. It’s definitely more colorful than American legal tender, and even comes complete with two extra zeroes tagged on at the end so you can sound rich when you tell your friends that you have 500,000 of them.

One downside of paying for things in Japan is that there are a lot of coins involved. The lowest yen bill these days is a senyen, which is about ten dollars. Senyen is also just fun to say. Everything under that is all coin, and boy do they add up. I have a cardboard box in my closet with probably the equivalent of $2000, that I’m just too lazy to get turned into bills at the bank. I’m also not strong enough to lift it. Japan is a cash society, which means that barely anybody uses bank cards to purchase anything. I don’t even have a debit card, just a “cash card” that I use to take cash out of the ATM, so I can then turn around and hand it to a cashier, who then will probably turn around and hand me my change…IN COINS! LOTS OF COINS! YEAH! I do Choudo though. Do you choudo? You should choudo. Choudo just means like ‘exact’ or ‘just’ and its what cashiers say to you when you give them exact change. I like saying ‘choudo’ too.

While I am on the subject of purchasing things in Japan, I want to discuss the Yen sign dilemma. Its not really a dilemma, I just though that sounded like a cool lead-in. There are two different signs associated with money in Japan. I have taken the delicate time to re-create them both on my favorite little white board. The one on the left is the Japanese yen symbol, like it’s dollar sign counterpart and you can find it on bills, on receipts, and any paperwork having to do with money. But the one on the right is the kanji for things like ‘yen’ and ’round’, and this is the symbol you will find printed on a lot of food packages telling you how much the product is. It’s just a little confusing. Oh and speaking of prices on packages, they always include the price before tax and then the price after tax in parentheses right next to it for super duper extra bonus points! But yeah, if you ever come to Japan, expect to have a heavy wallet for your fistful of yen!

 

The Grand Tsuyama Hotel

I know it might be hard to believe, but I lived in hotels in Japan for 5 weeks. I’m not exactly sure why that would be hard to believe, I had just been spending too much time deciding on the right way to start this post off that I got fed up and dove right in. Hemingway used to say ‘write drunk and edit sober’, I say ‘write drunk and…that’s it, why edit? Editing is for losers!’. I’m not drunk though, so I just broke my first rule of whatever I’m talking about right now. Moving on! I was away on business and the greatest part of the whole experience was that I got to drive hundreds of miles to live in hotels for 5 weeks.  It was like 7 hours on toll roads. The total at the end was around $300 I want to say. Now, I feel like you’re reading the word ‘hotel’ and you’re thinking things like ‘cush’ ‘en vogue’ ‘chic’, ok I’m just naming magazines…but you’re probably thinking that it sounds fun. But I didn’t stay in a cushy, en voguey lavish hotel.

I stayed in a hotel room roughly the size of a shoebox for 4 weeks, and then another hotel room roughly the size of something relatively the same size as a shoebox for another week. Generic cheap Japanese hotels are nice though. They have lovely customer service like everywhere else in Japan, they have a and I mean one computer with printer that you have access to for FREE in the lobby complete with chair that makes you scrape the top of your legs on the under side of the desk and doesn’t have wheels so its super awkward to move on hotel lobby carpet, about 70 rooms but easily accessible parking for only about 12 cars, and everything smells like cigarette smoke. Also, there were porn ads in all the rooms right next to the TV. Ads for softcore porn, in every room, what a deal! Now, as far as the computer goes, I had my laptop in the room as well as my kindle (this was before my smartphone days), but even with the code the internet was not strong enough to work in the rooms, so I had to like ‘Jay and silent Bob style’ hang out in the hallway so I could use the internet. Also, there was parking in another lot, but it was kind of expensive and it had weird hours and filled up pretty quickly on the weekends. At least a handful of times, the staff let me park in the small alleyway right next to the front door, which was pretty cool though.

Also, because I was there on business, I got these gift cards every week that were good at convenience stores and other places like bookstores and museums or whatever, but a friend of mine pointed out that a lot of the places where the gift cards were good at were sex shops. I wasn’t exactly staying in the best part of town, but a seedy part of Japan is like the equivalent of nowhere in America because Japan is like the safest place on earth. There were also a few occasions where I was hesitant to use the elevator because it would jerk occasionally and the doors would take extra super long to open after arriving at my floor.

The city I was staying in was called Tsuyama, hence the name of the post, and that is in Okayama prefecture. It’s always strange to be in cities in Japan because they build so densely around old castles. So right across the street from my hotel on a hill you could see the top of an old Japanese Castle, but below it is a plethora of hotels and city buildings. It’s just interesting. It looks really cool though. And the highlight of the whole trip, apart from visiting Hyogo and seeing Himeji Castle, which is literally pictured on flyers and posters every two blocks in Himeji, was playing some Beatle’s tunes at a small bar. I have a picture here of me reppin’ my Sac State sweatshirt playing a house acoustic with a dude on harmonica that I had just met that night. He was super drunk and super excited to play some music with me. A friend of mine recorded a video of it that I put on youtube.

We played Let It Be together and it was super fun. I remember he had a plastic shoebox with him full of harmonicas of all keys. He pulled one out and we hit the stage. It actually wasn’t easy to get me up there because I didn’t know any Beatles songs or any other cover songs for that matter. But luckily for me there was a whole library of songbooks right behind our table. I know that the Beatles are very well known all over Japan, so I chose a nice groove that would be easy to learn in about 2 minutes, listened to the vocal patterns on youtube real quick and took the lyrics and chords up with me to play! He just improvised everything because unlike me,  he’s a real musician and  I’m just a faker. I think only my friend and the owners were in the bar at the time, but still there was merriment and there was clapping, and it was a grand experience.

The DC Before the Storm

Interviews are fun. Of course, I mean that sarcastically, but to be honest this interview was actually pretty fun. I daresay it was the most fun interview I’d ever been a part of. I got to sing about shapes, I got to run in place, I got to say English words slowly while smiling creepily at an I-phone sitting on a tripod filming the entire experience. Speaking of which, I still haven’t seen that footage, I might want to contact my lawyer about that. There could be some supreme epic-ness happening on that footage that I don’t know about and I want in on that action. Creative commons what?! The thing took place in Washington DC at a hotel, and my parents and I stayed there the night before so I could be in the thick of the action before it all went down. I remember the night before the interview I was sleeping on the most uncomfortable couch bed. I mean, I feel like you read ‘uncomfortable couch bed’, but unless you were there, like they say on MTV behind the music, you might think you know, but you have no idea. And this is after hours of practicing my song and my Japanese introduction that I was tasked to do for the interview. I remember practicing it all at the hotel, doing it in front of a mirror with my suit on, looking like a chubby James Bond teaching phonics.

I was excited though. Things were about to get turnt up as they say. But unbeknownst to me at the time, I wasn’t going to be the only thing turnting up before long…

I remember hearing the knocking from next door at around midnight. I heard women speaking softly asking if this was where it was happening. A guy opens the door, lets them in, and then five minutes later the process was repeated. My parents in the other room heard the other part of it. The banging against the wall, the heaving, the sweating, they all must have been playing DDR. But whatever it was, it was a hotel party, right next to my room with my neck on fire from the couch bed, all leading up to the morning of my interview where my well-rested performance was gonna make or break my fire, my one desire, my…well my job. Sorry, I got stuck in a Backstreet hole.

 

Suffice it to say, the party didn’t stop. But it was funny that I heard the guy at the door letting them in, and my parents heard what was happening once they were inside. Together, we put it all together! Like Sherlock Holmes and Watson plus Watson’s wife/husband. And it was annoying. But I did get a few hours of sleep and I did make it to my interview on time. So, like they say in every jaded 50’s sitcom, I guess it all worked out. Here’s a short recap of the things I remember from the interview: It was raining, someone played a ukulele, I couldn’t remember what the Japanese Prime Minister’s name was on the test we had to take about our Japanese knowledge, there was about seven of us and one interviewer, and my performance was effing grand! Nah, it was pretty good though. I wrote a song about shapes, that in hindsight would have been way too difficult for students learning English, but in foresight, it was a frickin’ cool song.

I made pictures and everything. After the first half, we broke for lunch and then had one-on-one interviews. I met some guys for sandwiches, which probably wasn’t the best idea seeing as how I was wearing a suit and sandwiches are full of things that squirt out, but everything worked out just fine. But pro tip, if you are interviewing for something in a suit and you break for lunch before its over, don’t put yourself in situations where things might squirt out. Take it from me. I’m a professional. I was also almost late for the second half because I forgot where the hotel room was. But everything worked out and I saw some guys afterwards and ate some donuts. I’ve never heard from any of them since. All in all? 10 outta 10!