Thursday Night

Umeda Sky Building was pretty neat. It is 173 meters tall which is about 3/4 bigger than Kyoto Tower. There was no garden up there though. Not unless they think concrete and metal is some type of garden. There was a cool garden at the base though that had a backwards waterfall. I guess that would be a waterrise?

Then we went to the Gyoza Museum which is like all these different kinds of gyoza from all over Japan that you can eat in one place. Too bad I was still kinda sick so my appetite wasn't so strong.

Then we went on this ferris wheel that was on the side of a building. It reminded me of the London Eye, but it wasn't as big as that. By this time my fever came back so I was pretty much spent for the evening. It was still a good time though.

Friday

Today I feel much better. I still don't have much of an appetite, but at least I'm not feverish. I don't think there are plans to do anything today which is fine with me. I'm getting pretty toured out at this point. It's fun to do the normal things here too cuz life is so different here. Today we had sushi at this restaurant that had a conveyer belt that ran by all the tables. And you just grab what you want from it as it goes by.

Tomorrow I go to Himeji Castle which is supposed to be the coolest castle in Japan.

Observations

So I really haven't had much time to talk about the things I've observed while being here until now. The Japanese have space heaters everywhere in their homes. They also have rugs that heat up. They even have toilet seats that heat up. Yet they have no central heating or insulation. I see people wearing surgical masks everywhere I go. I've heard different reasons for it. Some say for the humidity, others cuz they are sick. I've resisted to get my own though. Japan also is probably the most fashionably free society I have ever seen. I've some pretty strange clothes and hairstyles yet nobody thinks it's weird at all. I probably could wear a mask and no one would even care, ha ha.

Monday Night

Dinner with the students was really fun. A woman and her sisters invited us over for dinner at their house. Two of their kids were also there. They served us sushi and some other stuff that was pretty good but I have no idea what it was. Nothing too exotic, phew! They asked lots of questions. It was like being interviewed. It always started like "Um, Kevin..." So aside from the questions I was asked in the previous post (yes, every single one was asked again), here are some others:

What is the weather like where you are from?
What is your job?
Do you like sushi?
Do you like wasabi?
What did you have for lunch?
What is your favorite item on this table? You can only pick one.
Do you like Japanese women or American women more?
Where are you from?
Do you know Britney Spears?
Do you know Hilary Duff?

The last three were from the lady's daughter. She showed us her karate skills which was pretty awesome. She was a champion in Osaka. I tried to video it but instead of capturing the cool karate, I recorded my crotch for 30 seconds. Needless to say, I erased it. Doh! Wouldn't you know it they asked me what I had for lunch on the only day I had McDonald's, ha ha.

After dinner we played cards for a bit and then we left.

Tuesday

On Tuesday, we went to Kyoto. We got up at about 6:30am cuz Aaron said I had to witness the rush hour on the metro. It was pretty intense cuz the train was full when I got on, but somehow I ended up on the other side of the train when I got in, ha ha. When we got to Kyoto, we checked out the Clearwater Temple. I forget it's Japanese name. I had never been to a pagan temple before. There were people there all dressed in white who were on their pilgrimage. There were these two rocks at the temple and it is said if you walk from one to the other with your eyes closed, you will find your soul mate. There were a few people doing it. I totally wanted to mess with them and stand at the other rock with my arms wide open. Yeah, but I didn't.

Then we met up with a couple of Aaron's friends in Kyoto and they showed us around the city a bit. First we went to the Golden Shrine which is a shrine completely covered in gold leaf. It looked pretty awesome. It was in this big pond with these little tiny islands. I suspect if you can run across the pond from island to island, you will find your soul mate.

Then we went to Kyoto Castle. We had to take our shoes off to go inside. I kept thinking how screwed I would be if my shoes weren't there when I got back. It's not like they carry my shoe size in Japan. The floor was really cool in the castle cuz it made lots of squeaks which sounded like birds. They called it the nightingale floor or something like that which warned the guards of assassins. Pretty cool, eh?

Then we went to Kyoto Tower which was only like 300 feet high. All the towers in Japan were about that high, but I guess that would be freaky to have anything higher in a country that gets like 1000 earthquakes a year. It still provided some nice views of the city.

Wednesday

On Wednesday I woke up as sick as a dog. I think I got it from the orphanage cuz Aaron's roommate, Jun, got sick too. But I didn't know how bad I was until we had already left for Nara. That's when my fever hit. I was pretty low energy that day on top of being totally worn out from walking the previous day. So in Nara we saw the deer park which had a ton of deer but none of them looked that healthy. Nara also has the biggest Buddha in Japan. It was pretty huge, maybe like 5 stories high. After walking forever and feeling totally sick I didn't want to see much else. Aaron being tired too did not disagree. So I got home like at 5pm and slept until the next morning.

Thursday

I feel better today, but still kinda sick. Hopefully I'll kick this by today. Anyways, most of today has been a rest day. Even if I was well, I doubt I could handle another day of walking. Tonight we are going to the Umeda Sky Building which are these tall twin buildings in Osaka that have a garden on top that connects the two buildings together. Anyways, I'm off.

The flight over went by pretty fast considering how long it was. I only watched two movies, slept a little, and then read my travel guide on Japan. I arrived in Osaka last night around sunset. I have to say that traveling west is much easier on jet lag than traveling east. So always travel west whenever you can, ha ha. Anyways, it's weird to leave on one day and arrive somewhere else the next day. It will be even stranger when I return and live Sunday twice.

Today I got to experience Easter in a Japanese service. I recognized some of the hymns, but the sermon was way over my head. Probably cuz it was in Japanese. At one time during the service, I heard my name and then Aaron said "you have to stand up". I guess it was new visitors, ha ha. It was a little embarrassing.

On Sunday night, there was an Easter party for the English school. We played this game that was kinda like a scavenger hunt. They didn't know what a scavenger was and Aaron said it was kinda like a shrimp. So they called it "shrimp human game", ha ha! I love that. They totally enjoyed the game even though they were all adults. They kept asking me for hints. The best part was when they had to go in the sanctuary and all the lights were off in there. They asked me how to turn on the lights except I didn't know. They knew the clue was in the piano so they were all stumbling in the dark to get there, ha ha. So competitive. I ran and got somebody to turn on the lights.

After the game, I talked with a bunch of the students. It was like getting interviewed. The most popular question so far has been "Is this your first time to Japan?" I was asked that question 3 times in a row in the same group, ha ha. Other questions I've been asked in Japan so far:

When did you arrive in Japan?
When are you leaving Japan?
How long will you be staying?
Do you have a girlfriend?
Are you Christian?
Do you drink?

It was a great time getting to know the students. I'm going to be hanging out with some of them tonight. I wonder if I will be able to finish this post before then. Anyways, it's kinda funny that in almost 48 hours in Japan, I still haven't left the church, but I think I've had an experience that most tourists never get.

This morning, we went to Namba which is like where all the shops and malls and stuff are in Osaka. I was hoping to see some freaky dressed people as I hear that's the area where you'll see them. I didn't see too much freaky stuff though. Too bad. I did see two girls dressed like Little Bo Peep. I wish I got a picture but I was taken so off guard by it. I hear that's not such a random thing to see here. So maybe I'll get another opportunity.

Then later, we went with some people from the church to an orphanage. I had only been inside there for less than a minute before a 13 year old kid jumped on my back. I gathered this was not uncommon when Aaron said "welcome", ha ha. Anyways, it still was a bit of a surprise cuz it came out of nowhere. I'm surprised I was still standing from a blind tackle like that. The rest of the kids were pretty young around 3-4 years old. That's when I became an instant jungle gym. How do you give rides to 15 kids at once? Yet that's what they expect. Anyways, it was lots of fun even though since I know no Japanese I can't really tell them to stop doing whatever. I did learn how to say no which is "iyeh". I used that a bit and it worked! Ha ha.

Ok, now I'm off to hang out with some students. None of them are believers so I hope to show them Christ's likeness.

Xanga Treatment Realized

Got this email from Friendster today:

Hi Kevin,
Since our featured blogs are supposed to promote Friendster Blogs, it wouldn’t make sense to feature a blog that links to another blog. But thank you for your response and interest and for using Friendster!

Heh heh.

Ready To Go

So I leave in a few minutes for Japan. Yesterday I was running a bunch of last minute errands. On looking for a travel guide for Japan, I noticed the travel book for Antartica was about the same size. Either they are really holding out on me on what I can experience in Japan OR Antartica is a way more interesting place than I thought. Or maybe they just have to meet some page quota on travel books by law. Perhaps the culture of penguins is extremely rich in detail. Anyways, I'm off!

I was watching American Idol last night and you know how they do cuts to the crowd and show the posters people are holding. Ok, but did anyone see the poster someone was holding after Carrie's performance? It said YOU + ME = US. Seems normal, right? Under the YOU is a picture of Carrie. Under the ME is a picture of this guy. Ha ha, but under the US is a photoshop combo of the two pictures. It basically looks the guy with her hair. So random and unexpected, ha ha! Now I bet you wish you had Tivo.

Last night I had the weirdest dream. Normally I don't share my dreams cuz man, they are just too weird. But this one I must share mainly because it was interesting and it had a logical flow somewhat. Anyways, I was back in high school and I had a laptop. And my laptop got this virus that had a countdown. And once it counted down to zero it made your computer explode, but it wouldn't just blow up the computer, it would like blow up everything around it too. So I found this virus on my laptop and based on the countdown, I calculated that it would happen while I was at school. Now onto the plot holes of my dream...how does software turn a computer into a bomb? After finding the virus, why didn't I erase it? Instead of worrying about getting blown up, why was I worried more about my computer getting destroyed and having to buy a new one? I woke up before the countdown was even close to zero, but my first waking thought was "wow, that was a really cool virus". Perhaps I am more of an engineer at heart than I thought (at least subconsciously).

Anyways, this weekend will be a little busy for me. I got to do my taxes and prep for my trip to Japan. This is my last weekend before I leave. I'm leaving this Friday, woohoo! It still hasn't hit me that I'm taking this trip. I also need to buy some new luggage cuz my old bag is not going to make another international trip, not without alot of duct tape anyway.

Friendster, you get the Xanga treatment. Suck on that!

Actually I'm glad that they didn't feature my writing cuz judging by who they featured so far, they are only interested in people who whine and complain or insult other people. Yay for not picking me!

Many of you have asked about the Skit DVD. Be assured it will happen, but we had some setbacks with a crashed hard drive so we don't have the software anymore that we were using to make the menus. We do have a workaround solution, but it will just require more time. At this time, the DVD is about 80% done.

So our retreat video did well, I think. It's hard to gauge laughter in a group of 30 people. I'm so used to measuring success in a group of about 200. So you're probably wondering what is in a "not fellowship" video. We had just a montage of surreal clips with the main purpose of shock. I could list everything we did here, but it really doesn't sound as funny written down. It's got my usual signatures like a fake appendage, wedgies, weird dancing, etc (the typical fellowship stuff, ha ha). It won't be on the DVD. It was good, but I mean it wasn't THAT good.

It was really hot in Big Bear. It's been awhile since I went snowboarding without a jacket. I was still hot even like that. I tried jumps again for the first time in two years. Two years ago I hit a side jump kinda off and did a nice drop and landed on my chest. I'm pretty sure I cracked my ribs cuz they hurt for about 3 months after that. Anyways, not fun to drag yourself off the run while other snowboarders whisk by you. You just hope you get to the side before you get creamed, ha ha. Anyways, with all that in mind I tried jumps again, ha ha. I'm getting much better at these. At least I'm doing better than I ever thought I would. I'm not so much as jumping high, but far. When you hit jumps you want to hit the descending side and not the table top part. If you hit the top, the landing is hard, but if you hit the descending side it's pretty smooth, but you're going alot faster. But I got alot better with my speed so I can totally hit them faster. You just got to get over that fear of heading for the lip knowing you'll be in the air. It actually kind of reminds me of when I learned to pole vault in my freshman year of high school. You got to run with this stick as fast as you can and jam it in that hole and let it just lift you up in the air and you just hope you land on that pad. There were a couple times where I didn't, ha ha. Anyways, fun weekend, good fellowship.

Normally I don't pay much attention to my spam, but the title for this one was "Super Human Powers". Super human powers? Not even a pill, but from software??? Now this is just getting silly. You can click on the picture to see it larger.



I feel dumb analyzing something that is obviously so retarded, but I must highlight a few things. "The powerful subliminal mind technology they tried to ban!" Who is trying to ban it? The government? Apple? (Since it doesn't run on a Mac.) I'm very impressed they took the time to develop the software for Windows 95 and NT. They are serious about getting this out there. No PC user has an excuse. "Blast through limitations with ZERO effort." That's quite a broad guarantee. Not only will I overcome my limitations, I will "blast" through them. What does that mean? "Achieve your goals...be who you want to be!" What, like a super villain that can control people with my mind? "Increase your mental powers and abilities." Does this mean I must have some kind of mental powers to begin with? If only I knew more!!!

Comics

Comics are pretty popular these days. It seems like there is a comic book movie coming out every couple of months. Most of them I hadn't even heard of until they came out as movies like Constantine or Elektra or Hellboy. But this link I'm about to share with you, I guarantee none of you ever conceived as real comics. I assure you these are real and that's why they're so funny. Why can't they make movies out of these comics?

These are some of my favorites: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

I wish I could put all my favorites, but there are just too many. You'll have to check the whole site yourself. Superman is such a jerk. It's amazing they ever created any villains at all with Lois, Jimmy, Batman, Robin, and Superman all trying to kill each other all the time. I guess if you have a comic running for about 70 years, you go through dry spells here and there. Remember, these were real comics. The captions have not been changed from the original.

I still haven't heard from Friendster. Could it be they didn't like my story??? Eh, it's really not for everyone so I don't blame them. It doesn't matter. I figure in about a week, I'm going to give their blog feature the Xanga treatment.

So this weekend I worked on a video for our church retreat. I was approached with the challenge of making a video concerning the theme of our retreat which is fellowship. As a rule, I never try to mix my silly style with something meaningful mainly cuz one tends to influence the other and it's usually the wrong way, ha ha. So instead we made a video about what fellowship is not since there are so many misconceptions on what fellowship is. Although I don't think anyone ever didn't do fellowship like us in this video. It is truly odd. I hope my new church can handle this stuff. So far it has done well in front of test audiences. I should buy some editing software. I get the feeling I'll be asked to do more of these.

On Friday at Bible study we were studying Nehemiah chapter 4. I was asked the question of how the Jews were oppressed by their enemies. I really try not being a clown, but sometimes I just can't help it. So my reply was, "they trash talked them". Even though it sounded funny, I was totally being serious. Check out the verse for yourself, you may need to read the whole chapter for a proper understanding of the context. There are many examples of trash talking in the Bible. I bet you didn't realize it was such an ancient tactic. Goliath was a huge trash talker. There are others, but one common denominator is they were all evil. Think about that next time you trash talk somebody.

Friendster Blog Created

So I submitted my blog entry. I'll let you know if they feature it. You can read it on my Friendster site, but you would need an account. So I'll save you the trouble and just display it here. This is that "great" experience I had on December 15, 2003. In rewriting the story, I realized that I don't really like this story as much as some of my other stories. Although this one is definitely high on the strangely odd scale, I think people will respond to it in very different ways. Some will think it's really funny and others will think it's really terrible. I like my stories to generally be more fun than this one turned out. I hope people will receive it that way, but I don't blame them if they don't. It's not like a tremendous story where everyone can agree on the outcome like to survive being hit by a train with minimal injury like what happened to my brother OR accidentally getting caught in Regean's presidential motorcade like what happened to my mom OR driving a car into your parents' house when you were a toddler like what happened to my dad. Anyways, I did my best in trying to bring out how strange the experience was. I'm not sure if I succeeded or not. It seems like more detail increased its intensity and diminished its humor. The story is definitely dark. Oh well, enjoy!

................

This story is 100% true. I think it's ironically tragic. My friends that are girls think it's a horrible story. My friends that are guys think it's the most hilarious story ever and forwarded it to their friends. This is proof that truth can be stranger than fiction.

I was driving to work Monday morning and was heading through this empty street surrounded by warehouses and empty fields. It was a pretty quiet drive since my radio got stolen the previous day so I had all these wires hanging out of my dash. I had nearly arrived to work when I see a rabbit come out of nowhere running right towards me. Now I know what you're thinking. You're either thinking I should swerve to avoid this tiny little animal OR you're thinking I should just keep going my way cuz it beats swerving into a light pole. I tend to agree with the latter frame of mind as would most guys. But the rabbit darted out of my path so I didn't need to slow down after all. Note to self: When you see an insignificant animal running towards your car, try to slow down anyways (without swerving) even if you may not stop before you hit the animal. It didn't occur to me why the rabbit was darting randomly across the street, but that became obvious very soon as a dog appeared out of nowhere chasing the rabbit. Since the rabbit darted out of the way of my car just in time, it only left the dog charging my wheel at full speed. I didn't even have a chance to hit the brakes. I hit that dog at 40mph. I was so stunned by what happened it took me about 200 yards before I stopped. Then I realized the owner was probably near there or even saw it happen.

I reversed back to the scene. By then the owner was there. He was a middle aged man dressed in a flannel and jeans and had a beard. All I could say was that I was sorry and it came out of nowhere, I had no chance to stop. He didn't even listen and said, "Oh please help!" This I didn't even know how to respond to. His dog had no chance. I was surprised that the dog was still alive. So stupidly yet trying to be helpful, I say, "What do you want me to do?" He says, "Grab his legs!" (don't worry, they were still attached). We carried the dog to his car. Once the dog was placed in the car, he began to give the dog CPR! The man had completely lost his mind. The dog was still conscious so CPR wasn't going to help and I doubt it would have worked anyway. I was kind of freaked out at the man's behavior. I think I killed his best friend, was he going to take it out on me? An eye for an eye? All I could say was, "Sir, I'm very sorry. I had a dog die the same way." (It's true.) That's when the man looked at me for the first time and he had the dog's blood all over his face. He was obviously in shock. So was I, but for a different reason. I think that's about the time when the dog died. I could see it wasn't breathing anymore. He calmed down a bit and said, "I know it's not your fault, but I'm going to try and take her to a vet anyway...and I'm really sorry about your car."...Wha??? (He takes off.)

That's when I noticed that my car's headlight is hanging from the car by a thread. There were also a bunch of scratches on the bumper and that really hard plastic in the wheel well was completely torn out of the car. I wedged the light back into the car. It seemed secure even though some of the clips had broken. Surprisingly the light and blinker still worked. I got back in the car and the first thing I notice is the wires sticking out of the gaping hole where my radio used to be. I hate this car, I thought. Two days before, this was a nice car for an 11 year old Honda Civic. Now it was some hacked up ghetto dog killer.

I arrived at work pretty shaken up. I don't feel any guilt about what happened. I know it was only an accident. I don't feel compelled to buy this man a new dog. I figured the repairs on my car will be more so I think I will call it even. I never thought to get his information anyways. I was surprised how many people asked me if I got his information. When would I have worked that in? I can just see between puffs of air into his mangled dog, "Uh can I get your address and phone number for my insurance?" Anyways, turns out the damage exceeded the value of my car. That stupid dog totaled my car! About a week later, I was driving down the 405 freeway when I heard a "thunk" sound. That was my headlight saying goodbye to my car. That's the last straw! I bought an Acura that day. I didn't want to keep driving a dog killer anyway. I guess it worked out in the end. I like my new car alot better. I hope the man got a new dog although I doubt his dog cost as much as my car.

Final Score:
Rabbit: 1
Dog: 0
Car: 0

The Moral: Drive safe everybody and keep your dog on a leash.

Friendster Blogs

Friendster is offering a new blog feature and sent out a request about a month ago to submit a 1 or 2 sentence blurb on a blog that you would think would be an interesting feature for Friendster Blogs. So being that strange things happen to me from time to time, I felt this was a direct calling to me. And probably one of the most infamous and strangest stories ever to happen to me is the time I hit a dog and it totaled my car. My submission to Friendster was somewhere along the lines of:

"I hit a dog on the way to work and it totaled my car."

I figured that brief submission would create enough interest to make it to the next round. It's been awhile and I kind of forgotten about it, but today I received this email:

Thank you for your interest in creating a Friendster Blog. We are launching the new feature today, Tuesday, March 1st. As you know, we are looking for captivating blogs to highlight and because of your response, your blog will be considered for a feature on the homepage. We will be reviewing the blogs as they are posted and will notify you if your blog has been selected for fame. When you have created your first blog please let us know by responding to this email with as the subject.

We look forward to seeing how you express yourself. Thank you, again, for your interest in this project.

I don't know if they sent that to every participant or not, but I figure that story is tough to compete with. The original story is on blog post December 15, 2003. I intend to rewrite it for this submission.