The B of the Bang

Bangkok, the catalyst for many a thing and first off was the squirts. There must be some Pavlovian mechanism built into my stomach because no sooner as I had landed in Bangkok airport my bowels were rumbling. Frantically rushing to the toilet I let out one of three nuclear fuelled slush puppies into South East Asia's sewage system.

I'd planned on hitting up a hotel and taking it easy for the first couple of days. Three minutes after unpacking and lying on my bed, semi naked, the walls drew closer until the only thing to do was fall onto the Koh San road before I was squashed by loneliness.

Apart from being incredibly well hung, black and lightening quick myself and Linford Christie share one other quality. He used to say that to get the best possible start when racing you have to go on the 'B of the Bang' when the starter fires his gun. Taking that on board Chang #1 was swiftly ordered, my name chalked up on the pool table and ten hours later I was in an all night hummus bar drinking Chang with a Finnish Goth and an Ethiopian singing 'Feed The World' (Meleke had never even heard of Bob Geldof...). Three hours after that I was retcing up hummus on my bedroom floor. Night two followed a similar theme this time with more people in tow: two gay Canadians who've offered me a place to stay in their villa in Bali, a Nicaraguan who was drinking so much red bull his heart was actually beating on the table next to him, a German-Austrian combo complete with white tank tops and matching bandanna's and a toothless Scot, also wearing a bandanna. Chang and techno don't quite mix, nor do buckets of vodka and techno but it seemed like a better idea to goober dance with a sand bucket in my hand. The Fritzl brothers were busy prodding their semis into anything with an A-cup and bigger with little success until a group of Aussie chicks showed interest. At this stage I couldn't tell left from wrong and started on an Air Hump odyssey which caught on like a fire in the Melbourne botanical gardens. I Air Humped back to the hotel when the sun came up to fall asleep fully clothed on the floor and then gracefully woken up by the cleaning lady at check out time.

Leaving Bangkok behind wasn't an easy decision, it was the only option. Changovers corrode your brain with each drop of Changover sweat dripping from your brow acidicly hitting the floor. Chang-Mai, that was it. Culture time. I'm on my own and time to soak it all up like the culture sponge I am. Check in at the hotel, the walls drawing closer...same same, but different. Drinking buckets ringside at the Muay-Thai with a group of randomers til my first Irish encounter of the trip dropped his pasty head through the doors. A Corkonian with a chip as large as the rotating one at the entrance to Silicon Valley his opener was 'I hate meeting Irish people when I'm traveling', well don't travel then you ginger fuckwit and stay on your own side of the Lee. He followed this up with a Northside - Southside rant and how he can't get over the fact that when Irish are away they make drunken messes of themselves. He then proceeded to climb into the ring and 'robot' dance, i.e. he wobbled around like someone had taken control of the remote to Stephen Hawkins wheelchair before his shorts fell around his red ankles revealing Dunnes Stores finest y-fronts for all to see. I suppose he has a point though about the Irish making drunken messes of themselves. For his closing routine he introduced himself to an Irish guy who showed up at the end who'd been training in the local Muay-Thai gym. This guy was about 6-6" covered in tatts and clearly out of his mind on some sort of yabba-esque amphetamine. After finding out he was from Walkinstown (he also used to work in the Hemp store on Capel street during the mushroom period) he asked was he a knacker and where was his gun. At this point Johnny Cork was taken to the side by his traveling buddies and carried away. Hopefully he got knocked down by a tuk-tuk and molested by a swarm of ladyboys.

It was to the jungle for my first taste of culture since arriving in Thailand 4 days earlier. Jungles in hot season are more like apocalyptic wastelands, trees bare, not a green leaf in sight and cracked red earth all round. First up was the elephant trek where I was plonkled on top of one of the stinky beast’s heads having to put up with elephant mucus being snotted on me every two seconds for about an hour. The group was easy going with a dainty little Swiss Miss to keep me company. Unfortunately she was only doing one night in the jungle so if I was going to pounce I need to find a source of Chang somewhere in the village we were staying in. Luckily the villagers sold ethnic Chang, Lays and Snickers bars. My plan was coming together until she passed out after three beers. Operation fiddly-fiddly was a no go so I let it be. A new day, a new-group. This time a more adventurous booze loving sort including The Faroe Islands gayest man named Hanus, pronounced Anus. I think I am the only one who found that funny. It's the little things. BBQ'd frogs and grubs followed by Changs and tat nig and soon we were out of the jungle, a highlight free trek and a cultural disappointment.

Rendezvousing with the new group that night was a messy affair. Dancing shoeless in a sand filled reggae bar listening to Thailand’s greatest reggae cover band before heading to another all night goober filled techno bar had a hint of deja-vous about it. I did manage to meet the worlds stupidest Canadians who believed that Ireland had just sold Dublin to recoup some of its recessionary losses over the past six months. Nice girls though. With no idea how I got home I woke up again fully clothed, and with about ten mins to pack before heading to Laos. Somehow I had manged to lose my bank cards during the previous night and only had about 1000baht to my name. Western Union had to come to my rescue and a night’s breather was afforded due to me being unable to afford anything other than a spring roll.

For those thinking of going to Laos, DO NOT TAKE THE SLOW BOAT! Two days of ass torturing hell it was if the land was passing us while we remained still. I was sitting beside a Japanese guy more interested in taking pictures girl’s asses than the smattering of Mekong villages on the river bank. He did get some good shots though; I have to give him that. No boat trip would be complete without some resident Dutch goobers all day boozing whist dancing to hyper techno. Two of them happy as Gary Glitter in a crèche goobering away both days with headphones the size of soup bowls over their ears. Night one on the trip saw us sleep over in some random village filled with hookers, weed and opium. I went for two out of the tree. Nothing like a nice cup of opium tea to accompany a joint.

Eventually we reached Luang Prabang and my ass could take some respite on something more comfortable than teak for the following days.

Laos is another chapter in the journey, so I'll leave it there for now.

As a sneak preview to what went on in Laos all I'll say is one word: MUSHROOMS.

home run

The final days of the Japanese sojourn are here and soon I'll be back there, home.

How can a year have flown by so quickly? From the moment I boarded the plane to Tokyo semi-drunk and semi-stoned it's been a bleary eyed adventure to say the least. Tokyo presented itself as a miscreant insomniac from the first night out in the hardly infamous Tokyo Loose nightclub. Hooking up with JohnnyAwesome and TheImmigrant I had a good feeling about the year ahead. Then I met the rest of the JETs. People who are beyond description with romantic views of ancient Japan, people obsessed with manga, people who can't talk with other people, people who thought they would change the world starting at the worlds second largest economy, in short people who are bland entities corrupted by self help books, Linux operating systems, comic books and the hope of latching on to a wife.

Controversy has clouded the year here from the very beginning with the rice-wrestling party and the Sapporo adventure. Privacy doesn’t exist and a network of gossipers ensured every time you missed the bowl when taking a piss it would get back to the Inner-Party. As such the gossipers created skewed images of who I am. I've been described as evil by one person, although I'm sure more share the same opinion.

Nights out have been the highlight of the days spent here. The winter being the most mentally challenging time I've ever endured. Boredom took on unprecedented levels as I watched and re-watched Ferris Beullers Day Off and The Bourne Supremacy. I need zero erotic images to flip into masturbation mode and can almost cum at will now. Blankie became a confidante and a friend always by my side and there for me when I needed somebody the most.

A year starved of stimuli and motivation would be a little harsh. It was only the working days that were the bulk of the void. When I look back on the year that was in years to come I'll think of the moments, that grafted together, make one of the fullest years to date. Like one of those cheesy end-of-year montages on TV I'll play over the songs that meant the most and underlie them with the moments that compile the brief flirtation with Madame Japan.

The nightclub TV steal, Sleepless in Sapporo, in another world at Womb, nomihodai (countless), off-piste jumps, mushrooms and valium and weed and booze and sun and mopeds and waterfalls and hammocks and saving JohnnyAwesomes life and firing an ak-47 and sea-urchins and LadySnapper pissing on me and Group D passing out in a sewer and TheFuhrers smile at the killing Fields all in Thailand and Cambodia, internet dating, dating in general, dating a model (won’t harp on about that though), being a radio star, enemas, foursomes, twosomes, O’Brien and TheInnerParty, outdoor sex, indoor sex, free ketamine, over-priced cocaine, dodgy pill things, strippers, hostesses, kudos, the students, the teachers, RuralSlut, MarbleMouth, FuckingSalarieMan, nutmeg and most of all Lawson’s cheesecake. These images and more will pass by in a flash with Everyone Has Aids being sung over them followed by Making Plans For Nigel.

It's time now to call it a day on Japan and continue the search for the Golden Toffees elsewhere. London seems the obvious choice as I can file thought the countless documents in academic, and laymen’s, halls on my quest for the Toffees. In London I can also start making the plight of the Iwate 4 known to the outside world and the oppressive state in which they were exiled from.

Freedom, I can taste it. Rice-free.

To those who loved me, I love you back.

To those who've loathed me, as my mother always says "you can please some of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all the time.

TheRunningMan is now on the run again.

Sayonara, you've been great, I've been wonderful.

done

Well. Well. This is the last hour here at school. Not a whole lot to say really. Been crying like a girl for three days now. Have received more love letters in three days than Gareth Gates does in a year. Bunches of flowers, home made ornaments, marriage proposals, pictures, picture frames to put them in, phone straps, sweets, hugs and more. It's been a little overwhelming. As much as I didn't work here this year I certainly have gotten to know the students as best I could, and my fellow teachers (Except Cunt-Sensei who is an absolute cunt). Familiarity and routine have certainly dug in and built up any emotional attachment I have to the recently earthquake-proofed walls of the school. There are so many things and people I could talk about concerning these years’ endeavors. Japanese education is just bewildering. It's so bad in so many ways it's beyond a joke. Pressure is immense on students to gain access to top universities, even a regular university for that matter, ' day weeks and 12 hour days are normal. Forced to join a club they have no interest in. For the most disciplined students every night and every weekend is spent at juku (grind school) having their little heads filled with exam-passing information. It’s all learned by rote, not deduction. If you ever ask a Japanese student to use initiative you get a startled look and a ten-minute panic of uhms and aw's while they try and figure out how to express themselves. They don't even write essays in Japanese class. Imagination is suffocated from very early on, it’s a wonder they haven’t all gone mad. There is no doubt that the Japanese are united in a consensus that education is essential for social cohesion, economic prosperity and prestige in international affairs. But unfortunately, like I said, form and rote take precedence over function and knowledge. The students aren't taught to analyze but rather only 'essential' information needed to pass the exams for their entry onto the next educational stage. And there are exams for primary school, junior high and senior high. And then the exams for university, the whole point of life up to this point. Schools also act as a discipline factory and hammer down the nails that stick out. From the first days of schooling the educational system focuses on developing such basic Japanese values as harmonious relations with others and establishing group identity through membership in a limited number of social and vocational groups. It's their way of life. I could go on only I'm not articulate enough nor bothered enough to ramble on about points that everyone already knows, and I've got a party to attend which is full of horny teenage girls. I actually think I may be in love with one of the students. Easily the best looking person I’ve ever seen. During the course of tapping away at this drivvle she brought me a photo of herself and a letter looking to rendezvous in Tokyo. 17 is okay, isn't it? Well, I'll just wait till she graduates. Eh...moving swiftly along. Lat post as a JET. I'm sure I'll flick one up here before the next stage of the search for the Golden Toffees, they7re out there somewhere. I know it. I won't give up. A year of contrasts, much like Japan is a country of contrasts. Charged with the duty of internationalisation I7ve never had problems with the Japanese, it’s been the internationalisers that have poses the greatest headache. I've gonna on about them before, no need to rehash now.
The Jet year, teaching wise is over.

Nothing more to say really.

What's in a day?

The end is drawing ever nearer, the curtains about to be pulled over or at least over here the paper screen will soon slide over for the last time.

My successor has inundated me with questions about life, snakes, cheese and more. His vitality reminds me of my excitement as I prepared to become part of the JET set. He just sent me a mail asking me what my daily routine is like here in the Nohe. I didn't know how to answer that question. If I'm totally honest he'll probably resign from his new post before boarding the flight to Tokyo, then again if I'm not he may wonder why I held things back from him about life in the Nohe. My final draft was a little from column A and a little from column B. I also realised that I've never told any of you back home what I actually do at work, or what my daily routine is. So, here you have it. A day in the life of RunningMan Sensei.

4a.m. and the sun raids my bedroom like NARCs in a crack-house. Immediately I wake and curse the lack of daylight savings time while trying to wipe the layers of sweat from my sexy body. Three hours of uneasiness follow with the humidity growing in intensity alongside the sun reaching an optimum angle at which to attack me from.

7 bells is greeted by a Japanese love-song-cum-alarm-call and the local tannoy announcing the days weather and traffic report, “it will be incredibly hot, sticky, rain for 2hours (torrentially) and there will be 4 cars on the road, PLEASE BE CAREFUL”. Everything in Japan conspires against a good nights sleep. I take note of her warning and am partially alive at 0730, when she repeats it. I now find that there's nothing like a bowl of rice in the morning to get you on your way. Throw in an apple pie and a yoghurt and nothing can get in the way of full contact internationalisation. A gentle dab of wax in my hair, more for the ladies than for me, and a quick mental reminder that I am the man and it's off to ‘work’ having had 18mins 42secs of sleep.

22ft from the house and I'm caked in a new film of sweat. The humidity is like a New Delhi street urchin, it just won’t leave you alone. I Indiana Jones my way through the thousands of spider webs cast from branch to branch invariably getting caught in about 47 of them every morning. These days I have to watch my step for the morning rush hour of tennis ball sized albino snails drooling across the path. Occasionally, a crow the size of a small dog will swoop to a fence post and death stare me as I walk on by. At least two times per week at the end of the wood's there's a retiree taking a piss with a seemingly never ending cigarette wilting away in his mouth. He doesn’t say hello.

With the leafy cover behind me the sun starts to remind me that it’s not just my sleep it intends on ruining. My first encounters with routine work-goers are in three categories type 1 greets me with a friendly herrrro, type 2 overts their eyes any where possible, switches to the opposite side of the path and raises a shoulder in a defensive position in case I might want to beat the shit out of him and type 3 looks at you as if they are laying eyes on E.T. in a business suit ( I usually stare type 3 right in the eye to make them feel like they should convert to being type 2). The park looms fifty feet below on my right with swarms of 140-somethings out playing petanque. Petanque being the only sport/activity that these right-angled great-grannies are suited to playing other than sitting.

It’s at this point where the students and I cross paths. The usual exchange being “good morning Lunning Man Sensei” and I follow up with a good morning how are you type thing and usually the group, in unison, will rattle off ‘I am fine thank you’, giggle then run. The girls just giggle; in fact I think giggling is a form of communication amongst female kind over here. I walk past and then hear the kawaii’s (cute) accompanied by the giggling, it’s a little different from passing Dublin schoolgirls who’d probably flick a cigarette butt at you, call you a faggot, threaten to kick lumps out of you and steal your wallet. The traffic warden makes a point of stopping whatever he’s doing to come shake my hands. As there is no traffic to protect people against its okay that he stops whatever it is he is doing. The final assault on the school is a 20% incline for about 400m just to ensure that I’ve sweat out at least 4litres before I start ‘work’.

I arrive at ‘work’ sweating like a rapist, red-faced and wheezing. Fitness has taken a back seat of late. The brass band is in full swing having being practicing since sunrise, as have most of the other clubs. When arriving at a Japanese office the protocol is to make sure everyone is aware of your arrival by giving one loud ‘good morning’ and 62 follow-ups before sitting down. We have two morning meetings, both of which I have no clue what’s being said. Then I usually find that my two scheduled classes for the day, that’s a total of 80mins work, have either been cancelled, timetabled together or they have an important test that must be taken today in order for them to gain access to university because if they don’t get to university their lives are essentially ruined and over and done with and they can only stick to menial tasks, well at least that’s’ what they’re told at my school. It used to really irritate me but in the past couple of months I’ve just grown used to it and accepted it. So usually I now log on to gmail and start chatting with whomever, well mostly FlirtyShoulders, for a solid 8hours. I’ll scan over the news and read as much about North Korea as I can find (one day, one day I’ll make it there).

If I am fortunate enough to have a class to attend I’ll be a human tape recorder for the second years. “Repeat after me” or “Listen carefully to Question 1, 2, 3 etc” is possibly the worst thing you can imagine doing, ever. Even worse than living in an American suburb. My first-year classes are a little more exciting where I get to follow the course book to the letter and occasionally play a game of my choosing. My school is incredibly academic and students are subjected to an inordinate amount of testing. Before every class they have a short test for ten minutes which basically involves them learning obsolete English phrases such as ‘to err is human, to forgive divine’, they’ll come in real handy on the streets of NYC when they’re lost in the Bronx and asking some homie the way to the nearest ATM machine.

The day passes at varying a varying pace depending on the standard of conversation going on on gmail. Of course there are the usual brushes with students and teaching staff, mostly though they, i.e. everybody, is too busy to notice if I was barebacked and covered in swastikas. The one thing that has saved me from sitting at a desk with a chopstick up each nostril and then head-butting the desk has been kyudo. For those ignorant in the ways of the samurai, I am now training to be a killer. Most probably I’ll be deployed by the Emperors special secret ninja guard team on worldwide missions of national importance seducing women, occasionally men, and fighting anti-Nippon guerillas charged by powerful world leaders and CEO’s of global steel and oil companies. the kyudo team have been my best source of street-level Japanese. They are all having sex, lots of sex, and mostly with the kids from the local technical school which is full of j-gangstas, or at least the laughable attempts of gansgtas that they are. Word.

Training lasts for about 2 hours after which my hand is so limp that I can’t even contemplate showering Blankie with love for at least three hours. Weekdays are mixed between DVD’s, futsal, hanging out with RuralSlut and more DVD’s. Yes, they are that exciting. There is not even a coffee shop in the fair ‘city’ I live in. People don’t walk the streets and all the shops are empty, I have no idea what they are doing. There is one ALT who has students round to its house on a regular basis but to me that’s just wrong wrong wrong. Would I, would anybody, in a teaching position, have students round after hours for video games and cooking? I’m not saying anything below-the-belt is happening but it does send out certain messages to students about foreigners, teacher relationships and the attitudes of some JETs, albeit well meaning, but misplaced egos and distorted views and opinions on Japaneses society and culture. Anyway, it’s just something I think about a lot. Japan is not a third world country, it does not need help from outsiders. Sure, it needs a Sumo size kick up the ass in regards to its attitudes and relationships with westerners but they can only themselves instigate the change, should they want to that is.

So the day ends after a meal of epic proportions. I have taken haute cuisine to new levels this year, all without an oven. Rice as a staple has been prominent throughout and kimchi has been welcomed into my life with open arms, and a semi. I’ve given up on Haruki Murakami after he failed to live up to the potential of A Wild Sheep Chase in his latter and earlier offerings, although I haven’t read Norwegian Wood yet. Japanese history is what sends me to sleep before it all starts again.

Working to live or living to work, well neither applies to me as I do neither. You can see that the walk to school is where the day peaks before troughing at ‘work’ and peaking again, momentarily, before troughing again. Up, down, up down. It’s all been about the weekends over here. That’s about 100days in all, mostly all good with tales of debauchery that have been shared and tales of another kind, such as last weekends cliffside adventure and perverted Japanese day-trippers with zoom lenses, that have been locked behind closed blogs. All in all days have gone by. One after another, days have gone by.

Saving Nepal, single handedly

The thought of children not having the opportunity to receive an education in a bricks and mortar venue inspired this post. Word of a fundraising quiz had filtered its way into my inbox, I duly obliged.

Apart from helping the poor, unfortunate and badly dressed children of Nepal it was a chance to run a sociological survey, of sorts, over the inmates of neighbouring wards, oh and get hammered.

The weekend kicked off on Friday evening with T, TheCorpse and TheImmigrant making the trek to the Nohe although it was almost Saturday morning after T's sense of direction almost led him to downtown Okinawa. BrassBalls joined us, too. The plan was to nomihodai our faces off and then back to mine for the World Cup quarter-final. The retards arrived so late we had no choice but to shove two hours worth of nomihodai into just under an hour. We gave it our best shot. I spray puked the bathroom. TheImmigrant dithered over every drink. We were on a full tank of hops and sugar when we reached the Pool Bar, last time I was there I had bawled my eyes out and crawled out at 7 in the morning shunning the advances of SluttyWaitress. As we walked in I got a nice 'Hey, RunningMan'(makin your way in the world today sure does take a lot, taking away from all your worries sure would help a lot, wouldn't you like to get away...sometimes you gotta go where everyboooody knows your naaaaaame, and they’re always glad you caaaame. I miss cheers) from GlassEyedBarman and a cheeky smile from SluttyWaitress. We set about watching the game with TheCorpse immediately passing out. We turned around at one point to catch two of the barfly's group groping SluttyWaitress's breasts; BrassBalls was deeply disappointed at having missed out on it. The match ended but the group had well fizzled out long before and we set about returning back to sleep with Blankie.

After picking up PrivateScouser from the shink station we set about taking the longest way possible to the quiz venue by Lake Towada, Aomori prefecture. I was eager to get there as quickly as possible so I could help the Nepalese kids. The hotel smelled of incontinent grannies, but if I was helping the Nepalese children it didn't matter where I'd be resting my head. We teamed up with the rest of the RedSocks: TheFlamingTits, BlondeAndBlue, CongenialScot and TheCunningLinguist. CongenialScot was looking a tad like TheImmigrant sporting a bling Jesus round his neck, TheImmigrant was understandably jealous of the $5 accessory CongenialScot had been given by a student. Dinner was relatively edible, in the sense that I now take 10% as being a good figure of what I can eat on a Japanese plate. I met a few familiar faces and one in particular who I'd been waiting to meet for a while; BeligerentCountryman. I hadn't seen him since the beaches of Thailand where we were high, as kites, on life (sit down there O'Brien) and listening to JohnnyAwesome teach us all about his favourite land, sea and air animals.

BeligerentCountryman had similar stories of Tokyo, and beyond, to share and an even more vented opinion on JET life than I did, nice and refreshing. Post-dinner we volunteered for the traditional dance that was organised. We got kitted out in the usual attire and made our way to the lobby for the performance. I spotted a wheelchair, which I took and sat in. We walked out hand in hand; well I was wheeled out, for the gathered mass. The non-PC tone of my act was evident in the faces of many, others laughed but everyone realised I was there to help save the children of Nepal so it was all good. I wiggled on wheels to the taiko beats being doled out by the 4year old drummer boy.

In any quiz I've been at I've found that having a Japanese person or a Japan-freak is a marked advantage, e.g. WeirdestManOnThePlanetAndNotInAGoodWayOhMyGodHeIsSuchAFreak
IAmScaredAtHis PotentialToSpawnAndKeepHisGenePoolAlive, although having the latter on our team the last time proved no use as he ran off only to phone us telling us he was wearing no pants. Anyway, we were three points down in every round as a result of being sans Jap 'cos the first bonus question was a Japanese question. Not that I'm making excuses or anything but we probably would've won had it not been for those questions and the non-quiz like bonus rounds where people had to ridiculuos, but funny, tasks such as draw Homer Simpson with a crayon in their mouth or wrestle someone with their legs, quiz my ass. But I was helping to build a school in Nepal and that's what really counts. Our team had a healthy, knowledgeable cast and was certainly not missing the cocky sways of FlirtyShoulders who obviously suffers from the Lake Wobegon effect. Well, she was missed for one question about her homeland, and maybe by a certain party in the team but other than that she was missed like a British farmer misses foot-and-mouth.

At times the atmosphere in the quiz hall was like a freshman frat party, being led by one absolute hideous creation of an American. A walking Abercrombie&Fitch advertisement, minus any of the good looks, he high-fived all and sundry and said “dude” quite a lot. I should have put everyone out of their misery and killed him with a butter knife but TheFlamingTits somehow seems to think he is quite different whilst sober. He got lucky, this time. BeligerentCountryman was busy abusing people and walking around with smoke in mouth, wine in left hand and water pistol in right hand. Eventually everybody at the quiz was pissed. T had passed out on TheCorpses lap and when we tried to wake him he directed a full force karate chop towards his dead girlfriend’s jugular. Made certain to mental note that one; 'do not wake T up whilst sleeping as he is liable to kill his own mother’. The quiz ended I think, as I have no real recollection of events from this point on. I know we didn't get to do our group performance which was hands down going to win. A series of bare asses with 'vote for us please' scrawled on them, there was no way we could lose if the clap-o-meter was judging. We'll just never know.

We made it just in time for the England game kick-off. On the way to the 'soccer room' we bumped into some blatant whore who's hoovered more cum out of penises than vacuum cleaners have floor lint. She stopped us and asked where we were from, we told her Iwate, and she said "You guys are from Iiiiiiiiiiiwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate? Oooooooooooooooh". It's good to know our good reputation has traveled well around the archipelago. You would never have guessed there was a World Cup quarter-final on in that room. People laid back and calm as if they were watching a documentary on the entrepreneurial wizard behind cocktail umbrellas. We tried to drum up some atmosphere until one of the girls in front of us asked us to stay quiet as she was concentrating on the game. I was lost for words. How do you respond to someone asking you to stay quiet during a football game? Obviously first thoughts were glass her and burn the body, but I've gotten accustomed to that sort of person here in Iwate and it was good to know that it wasn't only my prefecture that got stuck with absolute losers. The game passed as did England’s chances of the World Cup, and my chances of winning World Cup Dream Team as half myplayers said auf wiedersehen with the demise of Argentina and England.

Leaving the ecstatic, atmospherically charged, 'soccer room' we started looking for a party in some of the rooms but being the JET programme most people had gone to sleep early hoping that the next day would be a rainbow filled day of hap-hap-happy internationalisation and ego-buffering by parading around Japanese people and basking in the attention of being different. We raided enough rooms to realise nothing was gonna happen so we decided to take it back to our room. On the way back we met three stragglers from Aomori looking for something to do as well. One of them suggested mixed onsen. Two minutes later we were all naked boozing under the morning sun. The onsen was an over-sized bucket filled with tepid vaginal fluid by the looks of it. We’d most likely gotten in on the wrong end of some inter-JET copulation exchanging, and discharging, of prefectural juices. It also had a strange brown hue to it too, but the only floaters I noticed were TheFlamingTits breasts. Had she been aboard the Titanic it would now be doing pleasure cruises off of Southampton. Occasioanly my hands or elbows would brush against a breast, not purposely I might add, as it was extremley difficult to maintain balance in the small tub.

TheImmigrant was the first to get out which was a surprise since he is normally the last person to do anything. I've never seen anyone dither so much. He could actually dither in complete happiness on an infinite radial plane without it ever bothering him. We took our eye off him for two seconds in the Nohe train station and found him dithering by the shinkansen ticket dispenser for ten minutes, and he wasn't even getting on a train. In the small hours PrivateScouser got to engage in some field-ops on TheFlamingTits own landmines and crept into her foxhole from some deep, behind the lines, penetration. It had been 11months in the making for TheFlamingTits and in the morning she was on Cloud 9 praising the Lord, Jesus and anyone that crossed her gaze. It also turned out that we didn't finish last in the quiz, we finished second last. We can't even lose properly. Boo to us.

The next day we pulled a group dither around the lakeshore in the rain taking in the few attractions before we set off back on the road to Iwate. It was good to finally realise that Iwate is not just a unique case of a prefecture being over flooded with socially inept morons from Alberta and beyond and that others have had to suffer the same fate as the brave few here in the Iwate State Penitentiary. It was a successful night all round with some getting their bit, others pining for a bit, me prepared to wait for a bit and most-of all everyone doing their bit. Whatever fun we had that weekend we'll never be able to quantify against the happiness and profound changes we helped forge into the lives of Nepalese children.


Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

bai-bai paati

A 6 cabin arc amidst south-Iwatean woods was the gathering point for the annual Sayonara party. Perfectly hidden from the British Embassy, and the Inner Party, so that a rice-fueled, flag-burning, chopsticks standing-rigid-in-the-rice orgy could take place. And did it ever.

AJET arrived with 8 tonnes of rice and Iwates biggest paddling pool available for rent, everybody had brought kerosene to ensure their flags would blaze instantly. I was naked and causing destruction, just like at last the rice party, but this time I had stolen 7 Japanese high-school students and tied them to a tree occasionally headbutting them and shouting 'China Is Number 1' in their faces. It was a cultural spectacular that O'Brien would have been licking WigoaurusRex's pasty head over. Eventually when the lube ran out and bones became weary we got down to some run of the mill hate rally stuff, but nothing worth blogging about, it certainly did miss DerFuhrers abilities of captivating the masses but we coped well enough.

Now O'Brien, you don't honestly think that's what happened. Do you?

More people than I'd expected showed up but then again it was certainly less than you would expect from the " JET community", indeed a gruff boo hummed around as news of another sayonara party also taking place that day was taking place. I guess it was just indicative, and the final rubber-stamping, on the attitudes and personalities endured whilst in the Iwate State Penitentiary.

The amount of booze available brought a tear to my eye. Kegs, tins and bottles; the three basic food types. More than a man could wish for as farewell lubricant. I started off the evening with a couple of draught beers before changing into my award-winning costume, which incidentally is still waiting on its award. Grrr. The pirate theme hadn't caught on like scurvy on Blackbeard’s ship but there was enough to stroike feeeeeeear unto the hearts of all landlubbers abaord the good ship AJET, aaaaaaargh. (Oh god) FlirtyShoulders as per usual tried to be a little to clever with her DVD-piracy theme while TittyBeavers outfit walked the plank and only HellaGhettos giant X an her ass hitting the spot. I'd come as an abducted leprechaun who'd managed to escape his pirate captors without revealing where me pot of gold was, tiddly-ay-dee-ay-dee-ay.

"AJET, make me a burger", was how I was fed thanks to the obedient T flipping the burgers but somehow I only managed one as my mind veered off course with the booze. Myself and ChainSmokinDub proceeded to make some highly innovative cocktails called 'Walk The Planks' which contained a little too much rum for even the most hardened of sea-pillager. They had an initial kick like a cannonball to the face but went down surprisingly well in the end. With the tiny beer cups just pissing me off I took charge of a bottle of rum and sat at the camp fire for the marshmallow roasting. A step down from the other type of roasting I attended last week, spit-roasting.

PalestGirlAlive was winner of most pissed person alive that night and decided to further with the letting of her ginger mane down by taking up chain smoking. A not-so-stylish lifestyle accessory as she coughed up at least a half a lung after her endeavors. I tried standing after about two hours of bench warming with the rum-straights and wobbled over to PalestGirlAlives gob and flushing an unhealthy instant dose of rum down her gullet before seeking the balanced sanctuary of a life sitting down.

Soon the party shifted to the cabin with only a few remaining by the fire. I had come full circle on sobriety-inebriation-sobriety and was alert enough to fear T's visiting mate from England who'd just done a tour of Afghanistan and delighted in telling me about his favourite guns. Wish he had of been all year round, would've swapped him for about 18 JET's in the area. It was decided that walking on fire be the next event of the night, so we did just that. Not the best idea running across dwindling embers at 6 in the morning, but something to kill time with nevertheless.

Everyone sought repose and some sought a little somethin' somethin'、well nothing more than an impromptu kiss. What I will say is, from what I heard, is that the both parties involved were rather surprised at the chemoistry and that this faintest of kisses was a little overdue as far as one party was concerned. One of the party’s consciences eventually kicked in and sabotaged the encounter, but that doesn't mean the encounter wasn't any less enjoyable, far from it from what I hear. One of the party's is really keen for a repeat performance while the other party is stewing over what happened and its consequences whilst not allowing spontaneity to have any influence whatsoever. One of the party's is now writing to major alcohol manufacturers to develop future products with a conscience nullifying agent to ride in tandem with the inhibition dousing agent that's already laced in most tasty alcoholic beverages.

While this took place most people were in boozy comas, in particular Sentence:Marriage who slept standing up and WeirdGirl who slept kneeling down after puking out mini cow patties all over the cabin.

The morning breezed by with AJET making me a bacon sandwich and then everyone blazing trails on home to their individual cells around the penitentiary. A few of us stragglers pulled a Stand By Me-like walk through the woods to the old waterfall where we had the pleasure of seeing FantasticHugger in her element. FantasticHugger is the human embodiment of nature and leapt straight in to Mother Nature’s bosom leaving us for dust in the secluded canyon. The Waterfall was colder than my last week’s reception with two JETs in Morioka station but a good time all the same, even FriendliestPersonInTheWorld got in for a fully clothed dip. FlirtyShoulders moped around with a hangover and TheCorpse is apparently allergic to the cold which might explain why she smells so bad given that you need to refrigerate a dead body to preserve it as best you can.

And so ended the first Sayonara party, after a 6 hour drive home, in Iwate amongst its disbanded 'community'. The Iwate 4 were missed and there was little emotion on show for a going away party. A strange placement where strange bonds have been formed out of locality and maintenance of sanity, would we all have hung out back home in uni or whatever? It's not yet time to summarise the year but to partly steal from the last line of Stand By Me: "I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was on JET. " A strange year, by far the strangest to date.

2's company...

Birds do it, bee's do it even the Inner Party's O'Brien does it. And it seems that everyone was doing it last Friday night.

LadySnapper was fiddling with a Canadian/Japanese lady in an abandoned bus in the wooded hills of Nagano, JohnnyAwestruck was no doubtedly fucking/banging girl #749 in his 11months here, TheImmigrant was stashed away in the back corridors on the second floor of an almost derelict building with his new beau, BritRapper was being handcuffed by his kinky hostess, ForkDawg was spooning a different hostess, BrassBalls pummeled the life out of his waifish thin FUTURE WIFE, DerFuhrer pumped his hate missile into GroupD's passage to smurfdom, T committed his almost daily routine of necrophilia on TheCorpse and I'm sure even The QueenOfCruft was shoving a dismantled hard drive into her sloppy drive. There was a hint of lust in the air last Friday on the streets of Iwate, and beyond. Can any one of these couples claim to be in love, apart from the necrophiliac, with their disposable nail-painting, menstruating, hair-straightening milk-squirters? Not in the slightest and that's not being cynical in any shape or form. There's nothing wrong with wanting to release the goods into the opposition’s box whether it be indoors, up a tree or in a confession box. Everyone gets off on a different platform; I got off at a very different platform last Friday, along with some friends.

The World Cup parties were in full swing and myself, BritRapper, TheImmigrant and his latest lady, FuckingSalaryman, ImAFuckingSlaryManToo and Sentence:Marriage in one of the usual haunts. Five hours of nomihodai ensued as we shifted from one bar to another, skillfully avoiding a member of the Inner-party (PaintDryingBoreQueen) in the process. We lost the two salariemen to their weak Japanese livers and TheImmigrant to his Latin American passions blazing to the fore. It was three men blinded by the booze till the final whistle of the second game of the world cup. I've no idea leaving the bar but was reported to be playfully head-butting Sentence:Marriage outside while he bowed over in a 90degree droop. BritRappers hostess was mildly amused at the three heaps of poo that had assembled outside the izakaya she was in. BritRapper swiftly took her home for some S&M while Sentence:Marriage crawled to a bus-stop and slept there for the night while I tried to make it back to the FuckingSalaryman apartment.

When I called from outside his place he ran straight down to let me in, while he was naked and giggling like a school kid that's just tickled his first fanny. I thought that was a bit strange but put it down to the beer causing sever hallucinations and rode the elevator to his apartment. We actually ended up at ImAFuckingSalarieManToo's place where there was an amateur porno being made. CockSuckinSchoolNurse was atop ImAFuckingSalarieManToo’s Japanese manhood whilst FuckingSalaryman was shooting it at all angles with his digital camera before nudging in to nibble on her nipples. I was giggling like a guy who's just walked in on an amateur porno being shot for the first time.

Soon I was naked, too. Two Japanese guys, one Japanese girl and a hairy Gaijin internationalising at grass roots level. At one point she as atop ImAFuckingSalarieManToo's splooge stick with mine in her mouth and FuckingSalaryMan's in her hand, cocks everywhere. Photos to send home to the folks were being clicked off like a Prada fashion shoot, only classier. I have no idea how long this madness lasted for, but what I do know is that that girl has a bigger appetite for sex than DerFuhrer has for killing Jews. She flipped, moaned, groaned and gurgled and smiled for the cameras at every opportunity. In the morning she woke before everyone else and left to enjoy her day after being gang-banged by three guys.

I don't think it was ever on my list of things to do and I'd never have initiated it but having said that it was one of the funniest nights of my life. The giggles and grunts in that room won't leave my head for a long time, nor will the worrying image of the two Salary men’s penises in full battle mode.

My attitudes towards the ironically named 'fairer-sex' have changed drastically this year on JET. A spate of misogyny fueled by inner-conflicts and cynicism left me short on the lust stakes. I still have immense problems with their inner workings but have become more tolerant in allowing their glossy manes lure me into their slit-pits. Why can't I take notes, or keep a video diary, whilst sleeping with the enemy?

***NO TOUCHING OF EACH OTHERS PENISES TOOK PLACE, IF IT DID HAPPEN IT WAS MERELY ACCIDENTAL AND NO GAYNESS RESULTED FROM IT***