12.16.2002
A wineful welcome to this monday's edition of the
WASABEPASTSAA wwhee i cant spell my own thing
zoo mach waiin hick hick uppps
zo, letz ztart zis week'z firzt entry wiz ze zop zen, zall we?
1. Love Psychedelico - Last smile
2. Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra - Red bird ballad
3. A Tribe Called Quest - Find a way
4. Crystal Waters - Makin' happy
5. Misia - Sweetness [Satoshi Tomiie remix]
6. Love Psychedelico - Your song
7. Masayuki Suzuki - Yumedeaetara
8. Glenn Miller - At Last (with Ray Eberle, vocal)
9. Jazzanova - Love and you and I
10. Jovanotti - Funky groove
Yez, ze only hauz muzak in hear iz ole zkool Cryztal Waterz
eh, waz ken u do, im zurnin zapaneeze.
A propoz of zze weekend, iz waz great fun, friday wiz keiko,
saturday wiz good ole Mark anz friend Mira from Ozaka
oooooh yessssssss skiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing
in ze myzical Shiga Kogen area, one of two ski olympic sites in 1998. it waz amazin day, ze place humonguz,
hmmmmmm practically dezerted, cheap conziderin
we got one pazz for a million zlopes for ~30$
and it waz a beauty of snow anz i look zooooo zexy wiz me bumblebee outfit anz, no, neither of uz nowz how to znoboard, only mark becoz
he iz canada-ese and in canada u iiit, drink n zhit znow
(or yuki in zapaneeese)
whoa
ze zcary fella is our good ole Galvin sensei...same ski group plus
crazy east coazter galvin went zopping in Karuizawa on Zunday
well, Mira at least did..we, being malez, zhopped and acted
zilly az uzual. dude, am i haaat or whaaat
zo, today we had zort day in zkool (YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
and keiko came to cook a zypical winta dish in Giappan
called niku jaga ... mouth watering and heart
warming (yez, yez, and ze wine didnt help az all i zweear)
MANILA here I COME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
9:57 午後
12.11.2002
Happy Wednesday y'all...just chillin, literally, after a great
dinner of fried jap chicken and kimchi fried rice mmmmm
oishiiii
but yea, despite the heater which is right next to me, i feel
the cold, creeping, waiting for me. damn it's so cold
check out this pic, as of yesterday....4ft of snow came after
that pictures and now there are neat big icycles waiting for me
at exit tomorrow
Ok, now that we've got the cold out of the way (ya right)
let the Wasabepasta guide you to another of his infamous
weekends, this time, Nagoya~!
after a neat night with Keiko, during which we had quite oishiii
italian food at Jacasse (what a name for a restaurant)(and it's not
even an italian name), at the day after I was all not so up
but quite running, and with Mark drove to the other side of
Naganoken, where he kept going to see a ladee somewhere
in the west, while i took a 2 hour express to Nagoya.
Ah, yes, first of all, I was so glad I didnt need a jacket!!!
then, Nagoya is a neat little city, very easy to navigate around
(that's a joke of course) but i mean, comparatively
to the rest of japan, it is easy to get around also
due to a very efficient metro system. It is a very modern city -
check out the central bus terminal and this odd construction where
people can walk on it, and it has a fountain on it with a big pool
and everything is transparent
yea that's people down there
i was saying, it has many reminders of its glorious (?)
history, such as the fascinating Nagoya-jo (jo is castle in nipponese)
I find this sepia filter really cool, makes it look like an old picture
check this one out, which I took a month ago in Matsumoto
so anyway, after all this tourism and crap, the Wasabepasta
had to do what had to be done, and no it is not to hit the
poontang, but close ooo la la to meet the nicest girl in Nagoya,
Hyomi After a really good korean dinner at a place conveniently called
Yummy, we checked out the Elephant's Den, oops i meanNest,
drank up with cool Aichi peeps and met an English "mate" Thomas,
who taught me the english of the day: now, if something is not cool
or it is bad, u call it (i dont really know how you spell it) but it sounds
like mignon, but it kinda sound more like "mingin" with a nasal ng
so ud say it's vietnamese, but not it's not. damn u japan.oops i mean
england dang what a smile. I forgot to mention that I met godzilla fightin
with some local hoodlum After the Nest we checked out Jmax, a club that sounded
too much like TJ maxx, and in fact the music was the worst one
could hear, cheeesy hard house in one room and bad unknown
hip hop in the other, expensive...and yet it looked soo nice. Eh, well
at least the company was good.
The day after we headed for some really good mexican food
aaaaah yesssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
after that, we just chilled around downtown nagoya, shopped a bit
then I split and met up with Mark two hours later, and .... surprise surprise
went clubbing on a Sunday night (sounds familiar Bryan PlanB?)
actually we went to a private party of Nagano city's first club which
will open this friday. It's soooo cute (e.g small ass small) but it looks
very promising. hopefully more places will open up. You know,
sometimes men get tired of tittie bars....
we split early, and good ting we did as we got caught in the
snowstorm...scary
well, for now that's it... i really dont feel to educate your baka ears
with my top 10, perhaps tomorrow, maybe my fingers will be less
umm frosty. hontooooooo? haaaaaaaaaaaai!
12.07.2002
Heeeello~ just chillin as mama has left the neighborhood, and
for some reason I was thinking about Midnite Yell, I guess I feel
the negative vibes of finals week all the way here. But, for all
of you who were there, wasnt 1999 great? dang, that was
pure urban war, the cops with guns and riot gear, fires
everywhere, people partying in the street, arrests, raids,
threats, "rampart" chants, water balloons, Glenrock,
East glenrock versus west glenrock, and Ankur losing
our chips bowl against Asher's building's people.
By the way, I havent said this in a while, actually, I havent said this
on his blog yet...managers of Glenrock, F U expecially
you persian Mike/John. Quoting Priya's graffiti all over that
shady apt, "Fuck you Mike".
507 Glenrock was still fun tho.
anyway, had a nice nite, but tomorrow it's back to the old pastafunk,
hence we party, destination: Nagoya!
12.06.2002 Today was a good day..as expected I got off very early, like
one-ish....good day at elementary school, I even had a class
all to myself (usually, the homeroom teacher is always there
although being their english, after 4 to 9 years of studying it,
almost the same level of their 8 year old students, they always
just sit and smile ===> smiling to themselves "aiii, oh hai, gaijin
finally here, kids dont yell at me for one hour, only to him")
speaking about kids, quoting "Three Kings"
"What's the deal with Michael Jackson?"
It was an iraqi guy who asked the question, by the way
speaking about kids, check out how wild my jr high kids are at assembly
so, today what I did after 2pm was pay a bill, then braved the cold
and went to get movies, one was Groove, that '99 rave movie I
missed, I thought it was ok, definitely great music and then got the Legend of 1900, an Italian movie, the book is awesome
by the way, but alas, I got the japanese dubbed version
god I hate when tv is japanese. im a hater damn u japan jk
well not that jk, but a little bit jk
anyways, i am waiting....
and yes Chriiiiissss....i shall write you soooon ;-)))))))
below is a picture of last september's victorious soccer team,
my team, the one and only NAGANO! damn, whats up with the pride, loser? oh me? sorry, apologies ~~~~
can you find me?
12.04.2002 while listening to Bobby Brown's "Prerogative", let me show you, above,
a pic of one of my favorite members of my technological arsenal, otherwise
known as the "Paolo-watch". Small, eh? well, looks like it's already an old
model, and it's only about 3 months old!!!! damn u nippon~ im not cool anymore
my friend Anya got a brand new one like this but with a zoom. ouch ouch
this is insted my cell, otherwise known as "keitai" which, in short,
can do anything u can imagine except for cooking and driving (oh yes, i know
you were thinking sex, but .. i wouldnt know.. but it vibrates like crazy
when I put it on max, i mean hypothetically speaking), but it's a
great great great form of communication for country people like me
and u can karaoke with it, and take pics too, but, thanks to the baby above
i dont need that picture feature.
and this is Keiko, while not part of my technological arsenal, yet,
... well wont tell u why her pic is here, maybe you should email
the pasta & the funk and ask him!
been very very busy today. besides sleeping for only 3 hours last night
for obvious reasons, i had an exceptional 6 classes to teach, 2 of which
were by myself, and adding to that i was stuck by a merciless teacher
who soooooooo politely (cant refuse to that ddddaaaaamn it!) gave me all
her notebooks (like about 65) to correct, i was like, in my head of course
"what the ffffunk??? cant u see the schedule of today? i barely had time
to sit down and plan out lessons and i was yawning during the
hours we taught together, cant u see i worked more than you and worked
while u were busy changing water of the tea water heater? or chatting
and pretending to work hard? or transporting useless papers from one office
to another? complaining it's cold? booooo hiiissss
well, at least im out of that school for a day and go to my fav school which is
Usuda's central elementary. I like it because some teachers actually speak
good english ("good" meaning it sucks, but it doesnt fuckingsuck like
ther rest of the people ive met) and..the real reason is that I get off
really early, like right after lunch, soo heeel yeeea..hopefully i wont
have a ferris beuler day like the one some weeks ago.
By the way, if ure into police women, check out this site.
and
once again
the top 10...I apologize for not updating it..i seriously keep forgetting
1. Arrested Development - Ease my mind
2. Biggie Smalls - Party and bullshit
3. Robbie Rivera - Funk-a-tron [main mix]
4. Junior Jack - Happiness
5. Aiko - Kabutomushi
6. Knee Deep vs Shakatak - Nightbirds [A Side]
7. The Rurals - Skip
8. Technasia - Force [Dave Clarke mix]
9. Marshall Jefferson - I need somebody
10. Latin Concepts - Bossa vibe
12.02.2002
I guess I didn't get tired enough last weekend in Osaka, so I thought of
going back to Tokyo to "visit my uncle" quoting myself last friday
while explaining my supervisors the intricacies of the weekend to come.
Well, PAM I hope you get better!!!
So, once again, meeting point at Shibuya!!! with Amy and Jen, Jen's bro and his gf. so we went straight to the Lemon House for a neat
nomihodai (by know u should know what this word means)(see previous
entry hehe) and then we clubbed in Roppongi, renown area of downtown that
caters to mostly foreigners (hence ive always tried to steer clear) but
it was ok, not so great, i guess it was a slow night. we went to two
Gaspanic bars and then chilled with burgers ;-) oisshiii ne, amy san? anyways, amy and i crashed in kawasaki, got up at 2, had goood
ramen and then kicked it in the area, then went to shibuya and checked out
the capital of j pop fashion, ooo shibuya 109, oh my all girls
clothes, music everywhere, soo many clones of ayumi hamasaki...she
bought earring there, very lovely... ne?
Then, we met up with her friends for a bday at a really neat place,
where we had really good nomihodai, drink and food at Bou's great fun group of people. Then went to club Asia with Jen and her brother.
Stayed up all night.
Came back to Nagano.
damn im tired
soo tired.. but happy ;-)
thank you Amy for the great weekend~~
hontooo? haaaai!
11.28.2002
just had a neat sushi get together at my dojo with lena, anya, beth
mark and mongokid galvin while it was snowing outside~~ eeek~
Im debating whether i should go easy this weekend in tokyo and
hang out at small places or throw myself into the massive
crazy nightm like at slinky~
12:40 午前
11.26.2002
So, the trip began on wednesday night, when i went to see Amy, Ha and Devin
all the way south, just to hang out, and oh holy craaaap ha has the best house
i have ever seen, better than spencer's thats for sure
Anyway, the day after I had to attend like everyone else a two day conference
that turned out to be not as wild as I thought, considering we were in te
middle of nowhere with, oh my god, a curfew. but at least i went three
time in the same night to an onsen. not healthy i know. after a pleasant
night playing uno and another day of meetings, I realized that it wasnt such a
bad idea to have a meeting after all, i learned many things and realized that
not only I suck as a teacher, but that JET is really stupid to send people
like me so unprepared. But all good, now I know I am not the only bad
teacher so I feel awesome! yay haha
So, to demonstrate my newfound knowledge and appreciation for Japan
I joined the 11-man soccer team to party our ass off down in..Osaka!
Osaka? Hontoooo? Haiiiiiii!!!
oh yes, baby, bumpin all kinds of techno and old school hip hop, two cars of
crazy naganoans arrive in Osaka after a 5 hour journey through central japan
to enjoy the city of clubbing and to tap the incredible female resource.
That's Ed, with two hons, so yea we get there, walk around, go to this
bar, all u can eat and drink, sweeeeet! This is called "nomihodai"
aka
pissed drunk after that
but, regardless, we stumble at two clubs where more friends join us and eventually
I think walk around Osaka with the sun already up, with half the people lost
somewhere, and others improvising a soccer game with yakuza and pimps
waiting for the returns of the night, no joke. Ends up with people laughing
and us taking refuge at a capsule hotel, thats right...not bad at all!!!
it
was very very nice and comfy, it was a coffin after all, but it was equipped
with all commodities inside, super clean, and on the floor there were common
bathrooms but very luzurious and on the roof a full fledged onsen with massage
things and many different pools... ssshhweeet i have to say, a real hangover
killer. Now, I'd like to link you to that place but I really cant seem to find the
card I got, so let me jus ttell you it's conveniently across one of the best
Osaka clubs, the Underlounge.
That said, we picked up bits and pieces of the previous night/morning at
about 2pm, recovered Adrian from wherever he was, and went to
play the Osaka Jet team and humiliated them, them being 20 fresh
arrogant pros and us being 11 hungover, injured and, in my case,
good basketball players on a soccer field.
1-0 was the score.
1-0 is hard-core!
hontooo??? haaaiiii!!!!
that done, we were way in high spirits and ready to party, this time
we got smart and checked in at the hotel first, freshend up and
headed once again to an all u can drink, met the usual ladies
and more
and then headed, as far as i can remember, to an irish bar to
watch a rugby game, totally uninteresting to me, eh? im canadian like that
i ditched the group and ventured into the wilderness of the
beauty of Osaka Namba's district to meet someone at a club, guess whooo?
that's right PlanBsters and UCLenos, Izzie!!!!!
anyway, banging funky techno all night, which was prolonged by continuous
encores, and the dj was just on fire. The tang that was in there....Bryan ud have a
stroke. And Sharlene too. Hi Jen!
Well, useless to explain that Sunday was a long drive of shame, and for me an endless
journey that took me home at midnight, with bloody monday to look forward to.
Before telling you th tale of this past weekend, let me share quick thoughts about two
weekends ago's party weekend
From such an innocent get together to celebrate Beth's b-day, how did it turn to this, with
these fine men
falling for the same woman!
well happy b-day Beth! hhehehe
7:02 午後
11.25.2002
Hello!!!! I apologize for the complete lack of updates>>Ive been away for almost
a whole week...came back from Osaka today!!! oooooo mmmyyy
ill spill the beans tomorrow. of course, not all the beans.
After all, "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas!" ;-) 1:15 午前
11.15.2002
hey dee hooo! Thursday night! middle of the week, and Im posting!!
nothing nothing, just chillin with a JET peep from another ken, listening
to a neat deep house set this is a great website
im planning to post my mixes on it soon enough.
the day went very well today, i taught first, second and third graders in elementary
school how to give directions (go left, go right, go, stop) so when they
grow up and a gaijin asks them for directions they will remember that
they should have paid attention when paolo-sensei was explaining that
basic shit to them. Well, ok, i think at least some third graders got it.
I doubt anyone, teachers included, remembered anything once i left the school.
Hmmm...it must be pretty hard to learn english at that age. Think about it.
What if u were back in elementary school, and one day this random
japanese guy comes in to teach u japanese, and he knew no english.
Well, besides being stoned, being westerner kids wild animals as they are,
he would not receive such a welcome resonse. i think. here they play
along and cheer and squabble among each other to grab the tiniest
pieces of my clothing or one of my fingers. yet they suck in class.
booooh? good thing im just a "cultural ambassador" :-O
The funny part came later. I am expected to get off work at 4 every day
regardless of where i am. However, elementary schools usually are done
by 2:30 or 3 so i get off too, and the elementary school supervisors dont give
a damn of what i do once classes have ended..my job is done after all! anyway
my principal at my main school, the middle school, is extremely nice, a really
nice man, but when it comes to money and work, he's quite the unmovable
cow in the middle of the one way road, very stingy in giving vacation days,
and making sure i go to every meeting where the only words i understand
are "hai" and my own japanese words, mainly "wakannai" which is
slang for "i dont understand jack shit", or, better, "i dont compriende,
thus i surrender competely to ur will while smiling like an idiot".
so, point of the story is, i riding along my bike at 2:30 when at the red light
a couple of blocks from my house..the principal is chilling in his stupid
japanese car. Green...pheew im off the hook... but not for long, i turn the
smallest streets, and sure enough he's there driving around, maybe looking for
a store, and sure enough we make eye contact, but since im in winter
camouflage he doesnt really recognize me... but his second loooks are sure
chilling my blood...the shit id get if i didnt report back to school.
Just imagine Ferris Beuler. The scene of the dad and ferris running back home..
yea, anyway, i got home safe and sound
cheers!
12:17 午前
11.13.2002 Open up your heart and shine on me! -Praise Cats - Shine on me
Had a good talk with Izzie, yup she's still kicking it down
south in hyogo, perhaps we'll party when i go to Osaka
next week!!! world gets smaller day by day ;-)
enjoy this one haha, what a fruit
11.10.2002
Konbanwa people, finally at home..what was supposed to be quite a dl weekend
chill chill chill, turned out to be quite a wild one. The origina plan was of course
not to stay at home loungin and pretending to study nihongo but was to go to a
work meeting in Matsumoto for the Nagano Jets on Friday, then meet up with those
Japanese ladeees met in Koumi (see last week's entry), then after a night of sweet
hot sushi (jk jk of course..not!) just rest at home watching Monty Python's old
stuff (among which the masterpiece "Meaning of Life") and the greatest philosophy
ever made on the big screen, and I rip directly from the end of the script:
"Well, that's the end of the film. Now, here's the meaning of life. Thank you, Brigitte. M-hmm. Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations, and, finally, here are some completely gratuitous pictures of penises to annoy the censors and to hopefully spark some sort of controversy, which, it seems, is the only way, these days, to get the jaded, video-sated public off their fucking arses and back in the sodding cinema. Family entertainment bollocks. What they want is filth: people doing things to each other with chainsaws during tupperware parties, babysitters being stabbed with knitting needles by gay presidential candidates, vigilante groups strangling chickens, armed bands of theatre critics exterminating mutant goats-- Where's the fun in pictures? Oh, well, there we are. Here's the theme music. Goodnight." oh yes.
So, how the weekend really went, interestingly enough or not, here is it. Thursday, right after school
took the long way to Chino to visit Malani and spent the night there, watched Final Fantasy,..nuff said.
Nuff nuff nuff, and on Friday we missed half day of meetings in Matsumoto (thank goodness), the usual
boring JET meetings, nice only because you get to see people that are cool but too many times
too cool to go to parties. In any case, we had a party after that, and, OH!!! we had some
mexican food finally!!!!!!!!!!! The party was more fun than Halloween, being in the same place, there was also an open mic so that
was of course abused haha. After that, went clubbing at ZEK for lots of hip hop, disco and slow house
mmmmm goooood shhtuuff. Then crashed at Jen's at like 5 am. The day after Mark and I did the
usual trip of shame back to our hood in the East, but soon nuff, was hooked by Spencer,
third year, thus knowing his jap shit, and went to a party and then karaoke till 4.
So, I was a zombi.
And today went to a sports meet.
And why, you ask, am I not in bed yet?? Because...there's the top 10 to compile!!
ah, this is inspired by the neat sets heard at ZEK's
1. Chaka Khan - I know you, I live you
2. Inner City - Good life [CJ's Living Good Club Mix]
3. We In Music - Grandlife [Original Mix]
4. Koop ft. Yukimi Nagano - Summer sun
5. Modaji - The Latin protocol
6. Nick Holder - Black jazz (You're Gonna Love Me)
7. The Cure - Lullaby
8. Swing Out Sister - Am I the same girl
9. Lamb - What sound
10. Mighty Dub Katz - Let the drums speak
Hopefully I wont freeze this week. U think I'm laughing! hehe
well, enjoy this view from nearby neighb'hoooowie...
Love Psychedelico - Last smile
whoa
Arrested Development - Ease my mind
with Amy and Jen, Jen's bro and his gf. so we went straight to the 
all the way south, just to hang out, and oh holy craaaap ha has the best house
it
a great website
The scene of the dad and ferris running back home..
Chaka Khan - I know you, I live you
