natsu yasumi

idiot in frog
suit says this blog is on break
till next month, sorry.

are you familiar with HAIKU?????!??!??!??1??!?! As in old Japanese poetry, usually taking the form of 5-7-5 syllables although other combinations of 5 and 7 are acceptable I think.

anyway, the haiku is the truth. my summer vacation started this week, a full month (asian summer breaks are only a month long, omg culuture alertt!!!) of nothing to do, and I don't feel like blogaloggin. i will be back with a recap episode in late August. until then...why not amuse yourself by writing your own haiku's in the comments section below?

don't know what to write? no creative juice? let me give you a few rei to start off with:

i went to mcdonald's this week, know what i saw?

asian girls eat-
ing fast food that could be a
sexual fetish

and one more

computer says: 1
0001
001

also:

K-Town is boring
time to go to sapporo
susukino yay!

by setting the bar low, will more people feel like posting??? be back in a month

--Gaijin who writes this
signatures go here

Edit: forgot to make a title again

ok, i'll admit that that's true. i'm just wondering how the helicopter is in any way related

So yesterday, Monday was a holiday in Japan. What holiday? well....

the name Umi no Hi literally means 'Sea Day,' so I thought it must be some holiday about liking the ocean? i thought that would make sense, this being an island and everything, the ocean was probably an important part of life in Japan's history right?

So what do people do on Umi no Hi? sit around respecting the ocean while thinking about a sandwhich? enjoy watersports? all my questions around the office, in English or Japanese, were met with some major 4-dotting

Me: "What's the meaning of this holiday?"
Teacher: "...."

Me: "What do people usually do on Umi no Hi?"
T: "...."

Apparently (you know, according to hearsay and unfounded rumor), the Japanese navy was created on July 19th, many years ago. well why isn't the holiday called navy day? i think i might know why. here's something that happened at school about 2 weeks ago that i think might illustrate my point:

Asst. Principal: "There's only 5 periods today."
Me: "Oh, no 6th period?"
AP: "No no, no. We cancelled 4th period and moved 5th and 6th periods earlier."
Me: "but...but that...only 5..." /brainexplode
AP: "...."
Me: "Don't 4-dot. Ok. No 4th period, got it."

In other words the only person who knows what this holiday is about is probably the person who created, about...40 or 50 years ago I think? the planning process probably looked like this



oh shit copyrighted images on a blog. i heard South Park is banned in this country.

Since I had Monday off, I thought about going south to the nearest coastal prefecturue, where they've got plenty of ocean, unlike where i'm at. i figured, if anyone's having a festival or any kind of event, it'd be them. but no, someone just HAD to schedule their bachelor party for Sunday night in Tokyo, and just HAD to thoughtfully invite me along. so I went to Tokyo, to a hostess bar, which is not nearly as dirty as it probably sounds (and has nothing to do with snack cakes).

still, Monday was Umi no Hi, a national holiday, so i figured there must be something special going on. i poked around town for a bit, but i didn't see anything special. so in the spirit of the holiday, i went to the mall (which was open) and bought one of these



oh crap, you said sea day! (cue laughtrack, fade out to commercials)

--gaijin who writes this
signatures go here

Gaijin lake

I don't remember doing anything special during last year's 4th of July. I think I was in Thailand maybe? I don't exactly remember. I know for sure that in 2008, when I was in Korea, nothing happened. After all, it's not a holiday celebrated outside of the States, so people from everywhere else don't pay any attention to it, and rightfully so, it's not their independence day.

But this year, I actually went to a party, we even shot fireworks.



you know, things that look like this? this party wasn't specificcally for the 4th of July, but there were enough Americans there that we decided to get fireworks. actually, everyone there was American, except for all the Japanese people. and the Australian guy. and the Canadian girl.

it was raining all night, of course, because it only rains when i want to do something fun. but with a little human ingenuity you can still shoot off hanabi in the rain. we didn't grill much though. even though we were able to keep a fire going all night (with a little human ingenuity, obv) no one wanted to stand over the grill with an umbrella all night.



That's not me

This party was at a lake. I didn't bring a tent (don't own one) so I slept in my car. In the morning, the lake looked like this



It was a fun night, at least 75% as fun as my recent escapades in 2 of Japan's megacities. you can't go to parties like this in Tokyo or Osaka, no, this kind of thing only happens in the inaka. maybe that's why some Tokyo kids came out to this party, because they just have to ruin everything everywhere.

next week, I'm going to a rooftop beer garden party dinner function event hoedown nomihodai. think it'll rain?

--gaijin who writes this
signatures go here