This is why...... (in video!!!)

This here, is some videos of why I love this country. This weekend, it was the sports tournament in Natori. All the schools were competing in all the sports. To encourage their school buddies, all the students come to tha gym and sing these ''songs'' (sounds more like a war cry to me). Just check out the videos, 5 minutes of your life... You won't understand. You'd have to be a rock to not be motivated by this.

Singin' to the masses 1:

Singing part 2:

The soccer team:

Oh! That's funny I sing to statues all the time too!! (when I'm drunk):

On our way to the tournament (we won, it was obvious no? With a coach like me):

Victory chant to thank the supporters (ultras):

Tokyo kicks your city's ass .

Tokyo is the shiznit!


The subway and train map will make most men go insane. And it confirmed something I doubted, Montreal is really really late! Or is it Tokyo who’s very very futuristic? I took a shinkansen (high speed train) and got to Tokyo in 90 minutes. Wayyy better than the 6 hours bus!

Me and the angels, we went out both days and we found the world’s most fucked up bar: Bar Lockup. I got handcuffed to our hostess who lead me to our cell...... Then, we ordered freaky drinks coming in test tubes with syringes and eye balls in them. It was CRAZY! The day after, we took a stroll, stopping at shrines and high-end shops (Gucci, Dior, Vuitton, Armani, Salvatore.... they are all here) before renting a swan-shaped peddler boat thing on a lake! I know, I’m a whore. It was amaaaazing!

It’s hard to describe a city. I’m no Sinatra you know? So you’ll have to visit I guess! Just Shinjuku station is enough to make a grown man cry. I could have rolled up in a corner and died! Speaking of death, I was awoken by an earthquake on Sunday morning. Always a freaky feeling. My 3rd one now!








Anyways, amidst the Tokyo insanity, you can always find small islands of relaxation, hidden in between the theatres and the 5 floor Chanel stores. You really have to see it to believe it! One thing is for sure, my brother should not let his lovely wife go there, because he might lose her forever ;-)


See you soon Tokyo!
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Tokyo, metropolis par excellence!




Un réseau de métro et de train qui vient confirmer tous mes doutes : Montréal à beaucoup de retard. À moins que Tokyo ne soit en avance? Who cares really? Nous avons pris un shinkansen. Le trajet en train prend une heure 30 minutes. En bus : 6 heures!!

J’étais bien entouré…je suis parti avec Eeva, Jill et Isobel, nous sommes sortis dans Shinjuku les deux soirs. Et check this out : nous sommes allés dans un bar qui s’appelle Lockup. Le concept : c’est une prison, on est entrés, je me suis fait menotter à ma serveuse (HAWT DIGGITY!) qui m’a emmené à ma cellule. On a bu des drinks avec des seringues et tout et tout… C’était sick! Le lendemain, on a visité plein de trucs, on a loué un pédalo en forme de cygne(voir facebook)! How romantic! Je n’ai jamais vu autant de magasin de grand luxe. Tout le monde à un magasin ici! Tokyo, c’est une ville étourdissante et fascinante. Je ne peux pas vraiment lui rendre justice. Il faut le visiter. La station de train de Shinjuku, la plus achalandée sur Terre, est indescriptible. C’est assez pour rendre quelqu’un fou! Je pourrais me mettre en boule et mourir. En parlant de mort, j’ai été réveillé par un tremblement de Terre à 7h am dimanche… Toujours spécial. Mais c’est mon 3e là!

Peu importe, malgré la folie et la frénésie tokyoïte, on peut retrouver des coins de sérénité à travers l’insanité. Nous sommes allés visiter des shrines qui étaient très relaxantes et qui sont parsemées au travers des théâtres Kabuki et des boutiques Louis Vuitton de 5 étages. Faut vraiment le voir pour le croire. Une jungle de néons et de gratte-ciels entrecoupée de temples shinto et de parcs magnifiques.

À bientôt Tokyo!!

I'm going going back BACK to Tokyo TOKYO!!!!!

I'm boarding a shinkansen in 90 minutes with my PY's angels.... I'm going back to Tokyoooooo!
Will let you know how it went!
Sayonara

P-Y!

Sweet sweet Internet

Je suis finalement connecté sur Internet à la maison…
Je dois avouer que ça fait du bien. Je suis sur fibre optique donc je peux downloader Pulp Fiction en 5 minutes si ça me tente! Et je peux maintenant lire à volonté toutes les nouvelles sur le coup de patin de Latendresse ou sur les performances de Carey Price. Mais surtout, je peux utiliser Skype. Lors des derniers jours, j’ai eu des conversations live avec les gens que j’aime partout autour de la planète. Et ça fait vraiment du bien. La distance est un concept bien futile maintenant car je peux apparaître dans votre salon à n’importe quelle heure.

Au plaisir de vous parler

P-Y

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I finally have my Optic Fibre Internet.
Man is that fast! And I love it. It means a lot of things are back: poker, rds.ca and many other things...lol!
It also means I can now communicate with the people I love! In the past days, I have had live conversations with Skype with many people. I have talked live with Montreal (duh), Okinawa (exotic), Stockholm (missed ya) and Paris (oui oui). And I guess I was waiting for this for a while. It made me feel better. Thank you for being at the end of the line. It’s good to see you all!
I know home is where the heart is but when I talk to you I can’t help but think home should be where YOUR heart is... I know we’re far and that things always change but I always want to go back in time and relive those days we had together. Nothing can change that.
Man it’s about time they invent that time travelling machine, eh?

Tack så mycket

The dark side of Japan

Natto + Ponyo

Not everything is AMAZING in Japan. I know I know, it doesn’t seem that way if you’ve talked to me in the past weeks. I’m having a great time. I feel good and I’m getting in shape and stuff but you know, there are some suspicious things in the land of the rising sun. Here are two examples… :

Natto:

Natto is fermented soybeans. Yes, it already sounds delicious I know. You are supposed to eat them. They’re freaking everywhere here. Man, there is even Nattomaki and Natto ice cream… They sell Natto in supermarkets, in little white unnamed boxes, so there could be Natto in your fridge and you wouldn’t know it. And then one day, you’re like: ‘Well my fridge is empty and I don’t feel like going to the supermarket… Oh look, a little white box in the corner of my fridge, I wonder what it is? It has to be tasty, we’re in Japan…’ you take the box, open it and WHAAAAAAAAAAM! It hits you! It stinks SO BAD that it could kill a medium sized Golden retriever. WOW Just fuc*king wow! You have to read the story on Wikipedia on how they first decided to eat that… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natto .
Did you read it? They used to feed that shit to the horses maaaaan! The horses!! Well they made me try it some days ago and I’d rather have all the stuff that it’s supposed to prevent than to put that stuff in my mouth again. Give me blood clots, heart attacks, pulmonary embolism… Give me all that at the same time! I’m never ever ever ever touching Natto again, not even with a 10-foot pole. I feel sick just writing about the damned thing.

Ponyo:

Ponyo attacks another one of the five senses: hearing. Basically, Ponyo is a dumb movie about a fish (possibly a gold fish) that runs away from home gets stranded somewhere and gets rescued by a boy… bla bla bla. If it interests you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponyo_on_a_Cliff . My problem is not with Ponyo itself. I mean, to me Ponyo is just another annoying animation movie. NO! My problem is with the song… I open the TV, I hear : ‘Ponyo Ponyo Ponyo Sakana no ko’. I go to Daniel’s school festival, the brass band plays the Ponyo song! I’m on the train, this hot chick has a Ponyo ringtone. Supermarket: Ponyo song. It’s everywhere!! It’s even in my dreams at night… and in my head during the day. I call all the students Ponyo! I’m not sure that I’m gonna get thru this folks... Ponyo might win the battle. And I wonder what’s worse actually: Ponyo or the fact that you can’t spell Ponyo... without PY.

To listen to the Ponyo song (you have been warned): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez67yfbZwl8
I told some people that, on the annoying scale, it's higher than the ketchup song, the crazy frog and the macarena all mixed together.
Enjoy,
PonYo

Not a VIRGIN anymore!!!!

Oui, c’est finalement arrivé!

Ça faisait longtemps que j’attendais ce moment… On a bu quelques bières et c’est juste… arrivé!

Je suis content que ma première fois ait été une petite, pas une énorme. C’était vraiment le fun comme feeling, complètement différent. Ça n’a pas duré longtemps mais OH BOY, c’était bon!

Au début, je ne réalisais pas ce qui m’arrivait… Je me disais dans ma tête : ‘Wow, c’est vraiment en train de m’arriver… Ma première fois! Il paraît que je vais m’en rappeler toute ma vie…’. C’étais assez excitant!
Ça fait assez longtemps que j’en parle, ça devait arriver tôt ou tard. Je suis pas mal satisfait, je m’en suis assez bien sorti. J’en tremble encore!

Quand ce fut terminé, je me suis levé, et j’ai envoyé des messages textes à mes amis! Maintenant que la glace est brisée, je peux le refaire souvent, il paraît que beaucoup de soirées se terminent comme ça ici.

Incroyable… c’est le seul commentaire que j’ai à faire à propos de mon premier ………………………tremblement de terre!!

hahaha

Mais à quoi pensiez-vous?
Bande de perverts

P-Y

;-)



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Yes, it finally happened! I’ve been expecting it for a while now.

We had some beers and then it just… happened. I’m happy that my first time was a small one, not a HUGE one! It was such a special feeling, unlike anything I’ve felt before. Oh it didn’t last long, but it was good!

;-)

At first, I didn’t realize what was happening… I was thinking to myself : ‘This is it! It’s really happening’. I was overwhelmed. It was very exciting.

I’ve been talking about it for so long now, it was bound to happen sooner or later.I feel pretty good about it, it’s like I’m still shaking inside…
I was pretty proud, I got thru it like a champ! I sent text messages to a lot of my friends after!Now that I broke the ice, I don’t mind having a lot of it. Apparently it happens often here!!

Man, I’ll never forget my first……………................... earthquake!!
lol

ps: you pervs… what did you think I was talking about?

Work-Work-Work-Sleep-Drink-Work REPEAT

Donc je travaille des heures de japonais... Je commence vers 7 :30 et je quitte habituellement vers 18 :00. J’ai parlé à beaucoup de mes collègues ALTs et je suis un de ceux qui travaillent le plus fort. J’ai 22 cours à donner cette semaine et ils ont coupé une période pour aider les jeunes à préparer le festival. Je me trouve pas mal discipliné et je suis plutôt fier de moi. Mais je me demande si toutes ces heures ne me dirigeront pas vers un éventuel état d’épuisement… Bof, on traversera le pont (en espérant qu’il n’y ait pas de clown dessus) quand on sera rendu à la rivière, right? Et bien hier, il m’est arrivé quelque chose d’assez impressionnant, qui rend toutes ces heures supplémentaires superflues… :

Ça fait donc deux semaines que j’aide 4 jeunes filles à se préparer pour un speech contest entre les 4 Junior High Schools de Natori. Je n’ai jamais assisté à un speech contest mais je me suis basé sur la grille pour perfectionner le tout. Donc j’ai travaillé la prononciation, la mémorisation et j’ai incorporé quelques gestes. Je n’étais pas convaincu de nos chances de faire bonne figure parce que Daniel (l’autre ALT de Natori) me disait que les jeunes de son école était assez impressionnants. En plus, il avait l’avantage du terrain car le concours était à son école (Nicchu). J’avais un cours donc je ne pouvais pas assister au concours. J’ai écouté les filles une dernière fois et je les eu ai dit : ‘Gambatte kudasai’ (Bonne chance) ‘I believe in you') et ‘Otsukaresamadeshta’ (Bon travail). Donc après l’école, j’étais à ma deuxième job (assistant coach de l’équipe de soccer) et je suis en train de me dire que je suis trop vieux pour courir avec des jeunes de 12-13-14-15 ans, je vois les filles, des parents, deux profs d’anglais se diriger vers moi. Ma première pensée fut : ‘Bon j’ai fait quelque chose de mal et je me fais déporter’. Je cherchais donc le moyen de fuir rapidement et je me demandais quelle identité utiliser cette fois-ci (Max Power, Mr. Tempura ou bien Bouc McSay). Mais NON! Elles venaient m’annoncer, toutes souriantes, qu’elles avaient écrasé la compétition et qu’elles participeraient donc à la prochaine étape. Le directeur de l’école montre les plaques à tout le monde et tout le monde me remercie. Je ressens quelque chose que je n’ai jamais senti de ma vie (possiblement de l’accomplissement) et je crois qu’hier, j’ai vu pour la première fois tout l’impact que je peux avoir sur ces jeunes. J’ai dormi avec le sourire…
Bonne nuit.

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So I’ve been working like a Japanese. By that I mean that I get up and I’m at my desk at 7:30 in the morning and I rarely leave before 18:00... I haven’t spoken to anyone who gives more classes than I do. I’m giving 22 this week, and they took a class out of the schedule because of the upcoming school festival. Heck, I’m working hard which, if you know me, is rather surprising. I have a lot of discipline and I’m pretty proud of myself. BUT, if I wanted a crazy life of long shifts, I would have followed my amazing brother’s footsteps, right? Well I don’t know. I expected this but I’m not sure I expected to give 4-5-6 classes a day. But something happened yesterday which made this all worthwhile:


I was practicing with 4 girls for a speech contest between Natori’s 4 Junior high schools. Well I have never ever seen a speech contest so I just worked on pronunciation and memorisation and whatever else was on that grid. I’m serious when I say that I wasn’t too convinced about their performance because Daniel (my Natori ALT partner) was doing the same thing with his kids in his school and he kept telling me that his kids rocked. And he had home field advantage because the contest was held at his school (Nicchu). I had a class so I couldn’t even go but I helped the girls in the morning and told them: ‘I believe in you’ ‘You are going to kick ass’ and ‘Otsukaresamadeshta’ (Good work). So yesterday, I’m working my second job (assistant-coach of the soccer team) and I see the girls and some parents and a couple teachers coming towards me... My first thought was: ‘Oh snap, I did something bad and I’m getting deported’. I was trying to find the nearest escape route and thinking about which disguise I would choose for my newest fugitive adventure (Bat-O-Man... Homeless-O-Man.... or the ever popular Ambiguous Wo-Man) but NO! They were super happy and they crushed the competition! Now, they have to go and participate in the Sendai Area speech contest... I was feeling something I’ve never felt before (may be pride but still has to be confirmed). The principal was stoked, he showed off the plaques to everyone and they kept thanking me... I guess that yesterday, I felt for the first time what being a teacher can be like and let me tell you, it pretty much kicks ass...
Good night!