Happy Birthday Blog!

Hey everybody! So today is the 1st anniversary of vinceinosaka.blogspot.com. I really can't believe that I have been blogging for a year now. I remember when I first wrote on my page one year ago. I had no idea what would be happening in the year to follow. Well all I can say is that life is really good right now. I couldn't ask for more! Please wish my blog happy birthday! Or you don't have to, but it would be cool. Oh I uploaded my commercial for my English Conversation class. I showed my students today and they laughed kinda hard... They are starting to work on their commercials too. Well enjoy and take care of yourselves.

peace

vince


p.s. hi eri ^_^

I'm alive!

Hey everybody! I'm sorry that I have failed to update my blog lately. Actually I have been without internet for a few days now. Yes, again my internet has failed in the very "high tech" country of Japan. Perhaps I have the curse of bad internet. Anyway that is one of the reasons I haven't posted anything.

Did you know that my BLOG turns 1 year old on Thursday? Well if you get a chance. Leave a happy birthday blog comment on that day. It would be greatly appreciated... haha Well I'm shooting my English conversation commercial tomorrow. I hope that it will come out soon. I won't have any internet at home so I can't upload to viddler any time soon. But expect the video up in the next week i assume. Other than the internet debacle, Italy lost in the Euro 2008 cup. So whenever those wankers loose I'm happy. Ok well I'm doing good over here. I'll be back soon. Take care everybody.

peace

vince

Too much excitement...what?

Hey everybody how are you doing? Well I survived the dentist and the barber yesterday. I left my school about 3pm so I can reach the barber right at opening time. He didn't seem too excited to see me. However I realized that his demeanor was this way. He is a pretty nice guy though. We chatted about a few typical things. For example, the weather, baseball and girls. Sounds like a typical conversation between two dudes in the USA! haha Far from it I would say. Next stop was the dentist. The dentist was about 5 minutes from my house. So that was pretty awesome as well. As soon as I walked into the dentist office, a nice looking lady greeted me. I think they were expecting to see me. Anyway, the lady asked me if I was a teacher at Matsubara High School I swiftly replied with a great big "yes!". She told me in some decent English that her daughter went to MHS. It turned out that her daughter was in my class that day! It was quite ironic I think. We kicked the can for a few minutes then I went to see the Dr. He didn't really know English. Neither did the Dental Hygienist. So my Nintendo DS Japanese-English Dictionary came in damn handy! (thanks Danny!!!!) The dental office was all high tech. Everything was handled quite fast and efficient. They cleaned my teeth and fixed my broken filling. It may sound crazy, but I enjoyed it! haha All for a cheap 3,000 yen or $30. Can't beat that...well I guess you could...but you know what I mean. I have to go back next Friday for another cleaning. I think I will keep going for a regular cleaning, since I already broke the ice.

Tonight I am going out with my friends. I'm bringing along my good friends the two "toms". We're going to eat at an Izakaya (restaurant/bar) place. Should be good times. I will try to take some photos and put a few up later on.

At the moment I'm sitting at my desk at work. I have just finished my classes for the day. I am trying an ambitious (in my opinion) project this 2nd term for my 2nd grade students. We are going to make TV commercials in English. I downloaded recent commercials from America and showed them about 30 minutes of commercials today. Of course in typical Japanese fashion they had absolutely no response about them. In order for them to understand the assignment, I am going to make my own commercial. I am going to try and convince students to take my wonderful class in the commercial. I will shoot that lame commercial next week. So expect to see some ridiculous video next week. I hope my students will follow my ridiculousness with me. I can only hope however. Oh, and when they wrote in their journals at the end of class. All the students commented how they love the commercials. Of course I would never have known that since they will never speak a word out loud in class. Kinda crazy if you ask me... Well I believe that my brother and my father are heading to Las Vegas tomorrow. Please be careful driving ok! Oh and thank you SN and Tom for the comments. I appreciate it! SN, don't worry it's all good dude! Good luck with getting ready! And Tom, I'll be checking the blog soon! Well I'll be back soon. Take care y'all!

peace

vince

Hello

So the weather is starting to heat up here in Osaka. It's no big deal for me since El Paso is hot! I'm just glad that flip-flop weather is back! yeah!!! So what am I going to do this summer? Well, I don't know yet. I hope I can visit somewhere next month. I just don't know who I can go with yet. I want to go to Hiroshima for a few days. Maybe even go see Fukuoka for a few days also. Anyway, I hope something comes up soon. So tomorrow I have to go to the Japanese dentist. Actually tomorrow I am going to get a haircut and go to the dentist. Should be quite interesting haha! :) Well I don't know what to write today. So I will let you know some more good music that I have been listening to lately. Of course I've been listening to the new Coldplay album non-stop lately. My favorite song is "yes". It's just so amazing towards the end. Another good band that I have been listening to, is a band called "goot". They just released a new album called "arranged noise". It's a bit of piano inspired pop-punk. It's a great listen. One more band I will recommend is a band called "Run Kid Run". They are quite good. I can't stop listening to the song on their new album called "One in a Million". Well if you have some time check out some of these bands music. You won't be disappointed.

peace

vince

here is an older song from "run kid run"

We've Only Just Begun


here's the new video from coldplay





p.s. FRANCE PLEASE BEAT ITALY TONIGHT!!!!!

Interesting times

How are you? First off, I received no response about the JET information. So I'm not going to bother with that anymore. It takes too much damn time anyway. Kinda a waste of time to write all that and nobody even cares. So sorry!

I had a pretty good week. Every morning at about 1am I would watch the Euro 2008 matches. I would doze off for a few minutes then get back to the action. It has been a good tournament. Friday was interesting. I was going to Tennoji, so I was walking to the train station. Then there was about 5 police dudes walking towards me. Then the came up to me and asked me for my ID. I said, "sure". I handed them my alien card. Then they started writing things down and calling other dudes on the phone. Meanwhile I was totally looking like a criminal with 5 police dudes around me. Not to mention this drew a small crowd of onlookers. After about 5 minutes of waiting. The police dude asked me for my passport. I told him that it was in apartment. Just to let you know, I don't have to walk around with my passport. That is what my damn alien card is for. I even told him that. Anyway, he demanded to see my passport. So lets just say I was a bit pissy. So him and the other 4 goons followed me to my apartment. So just imagine how that looked. A foreigner walking with 5 police dudes. I was fucking embarrassed to say the least. It all turned out that it was "check foreigners day" or something like that. It was quite the primitive way of conducting a simple check. Ahh well...

Today I went to a BBQ. It was a BBQ for my PTA English class. It included all the members of my PTA English class, and the foreign exchange students. I ate a lot of food. Then we went to go play on these damn giant slides in the park. It was damn fun times. I felt like a kid again! We also played a bit of football"soccer". Then we played this game that I will call "blindfold a dude, give the dude a stick and hit the watermelon on the floor game". There is a specific name in Japanese but I don't know it. Plus, I think my names are a lot more amusing. BBQ in Japan is a lot different from in Texas. The meat is kinda weird and rubbery, and they like to put cabbage on the grill. I never did figure that one out yet though. I sure miss Texas BBQ with lean steaks and ranch style beans on the side, with a bit of potatoe salad and some Sam Adams beer. Oh home sweet home... haha Anyway, I added some pics from the days activities. Enjoy you all! Take care...

peace

vince

p.s. I'm listening to the new album from a great band called Augustana. The album is called "Can't love, Can't Hurt". If you enjoy good music then please pick it up. Or if you are a top 40 person, keep listening to that and don't bother with good music. No offense.. haha :)

here a video from them

here is a video of one of the big ass slides at the park.




grillin' it up yo!


yeah that's a bit hot


penalty kicks


kike and i going all superman style


yeah that slide was freaking huge


yeah we are sooo cool!


kickin' it old school


playing that "game" i mentioned earlier


yep, that's a watermelon alright


the bbq crew yo!

Something new for you... huh?!?!?

Hello fellow BLOG enthusiasts. How is this fine week treating you? Do you like the new Euro 2008 widget on the top page? If not, too bad! Because it is staying up there until the end of the tournament! As for me, this week seems to be going so fast. This week I have done a lot of test grading and playing basketball. At night I have been enjoying my new XBOX 360 games that I got. GRID and Rainbow Six Vegas 2. Most of my time has been with GRID. If you are a race fan then I suggest you pick up a copy of that game. Or you can just do like everybody else does, and ignore my advice and go buy a shitty game like "the incredible hulk" woohoo! Did you catch the Netherlands destruction of Italy the other night? I hate the Italian football team and their football in general, so it was a good day (morning actually).

Today I was eating lunch at work. Actually it really wasn't lunch, it was just a bag of cereal and I was crunching. I felt a strange crunch and I stopped. I spit out the cereal to find a piece of my tooth filling in there. So basically my tooth filling on my back molar tooth came out. Which totally sucks. I don't think it completely came off, just a small piece. Anyway, I had to call the local dental clinic to schedule an appointment for next Wednesday. So looks like my quest to avoid going to the dentist in Japan has failed. haha I should have some interesting stories next week. ;) Meanwhile I am just going to not eat on that side of my mouth, and just take care of it as usual.

Ok, so I know that some of you are looking for information on the JET Programme. Some of you may be on your way over here in the next month or so. If so, congratulations! You are about to experience something that you will remember for the rest of you life. Excuse me for asking myself questions here...haha

So Vince, what should I bring to Japan? Should I bring a lot of clothes or toiletries etc...?

Well as for clothes, it all depends on how big and tall you are. If you are a smaller person then you should have no problem finding some really nice clothes. If you are like me, a bit taller (6'4, 193cm) than it would be best to bring a lot of clothes. If you are in or close to a big city like Osaka then you choice of clothes will be a lot greater than a person that lives in some tiny town on the coast. So this all depends on where you are located in Japan. One bit of advice I would give you is...Only bring clothes for the summer in your suitcase. Winter clothes are usually bulky and take up a lot of space. You can have family members or friends to send them to you later in the Winter in December. Bring at least 1 suit, and ladies bring a nice suit dress, or pant suit. You will probably only wear it a few times but it is a lot better than trying to find a damn suit in Japan. Oh, one other thing. When you fly to Japan, they will tell you to wear nice clothes on the plane so you will look nice when you arrive in Narita airport. DON"T DO THAT! WHY? Dude, because it will be burning hot and humid when you arrive in Narita. You will hate yourself and be all sweaty when you arrive with 5 bags. Trust me, I learned from experience. :( Plus, wearing nice clothes on a plane is not comfortable.

As for toiletries. Guys, I would definitely bring 5-10 of your favorite deodorant sticks. I have been here for 11 months and still have yet to see proper deodorant. There is American toothpaste here. There is Listerine, lotion, shampoo, body wash etc... Basically anything you like you can get here. So just bring a few things with you so you will have it available when you arrive to your apartment. Then you can go to your local shops to explore. Another good thing in Japan is shopping on line. There is a COSTCO in Osaka. There are various websites that I use frequently to get stuff from the States.

www.fbcusa.com
A great place to buy foreign groceries and other items on line. They ship directly to your home in Japan.

www.theflyingpig.com
Another awesome place to get foreign stuff on line. I use this one the most.

In other words, don't worry too much about toiletries here in Japan. They are easy to come by. And if you have a loving family (like me) they will send you stuff from home anyway. So relax...

One thing I would like to mention to incoming JET people is that you will likely be getting in contact with you "predecessor" or the person whose apartment you will be taking over. Most likely they will want to sell you some of the things that are in their apartment. Now most of the time this is a great idea. Who wants to arrive an empty apartment with no bed or TV (even though Japanese TV fucking sucks)? Just remember that you are not obligated to buy anything from you predecessor. Absolutely nothing! So if you don't want to buy something they offer you, Don't! Also ask you BOE if you some of the things that your predecessor is selling is already included in the apartment. For example, your predecessor might be selling you a refrigerator, but the refrigerator was already in the apartment. They are most likely just trying to shaft you. So be careful. Ask questions, and demand pictures of the stuff they are selling. If a person is serious about selling stuff they will take the time to take photos of the stuff. Again I say this from experience. My predecessor sold me a bunch of CRAP. She sent me these lame pics but I was naive and I bought the stuff. Also they apartment was fucking disgusting. I cleaned that one up immediately. Again this a just a horror story. You might have the nicest predecessor in the world, and they might just give you the stuff and leave the apartment just spotless. So it all depends on that person. Good luck with that.

Ok well I'm sure there are many more things that I am missing here. All I can say for now is that you should just relax. The people at JET pretty much baby you the way through it all. So you will be taken care of. Now for the meantime spend as much time with you friends and family as you can. You will miss them, and something like going to a new and strange country by yourself will test you physically and emotionally. It's always good to know that your friends and family have you back all the time.

If you have any other questions send them of to

trancewave2000@hotmail.com

In the following weeks leading up to the JET Programme 2008 participants arrival, I want to try and answer questions. So send them to my mailbox and I will use my blog to answer some questions. Well take care everybody. If you play on XBOX live add me too! gamertag : binsu 1

peace

vince

p.s. hi eri ^_^

Howdy

As a follow up to my lame post yesterday I wanted to put a few pics from the weekend activities. Tomorrow I will post some information for incoming JETs. So if you are an incoming JET, come back to my blog soon. Maybe you will actually find something useful on my BLOG! haha Take care all.

peace

vince

p.s. the new coldplay album is lovely



a dude playing the new DDR SUPERNOVA game (he was quite spastic)


yeah Tekken 6


Tom and Tom getting down on guitar freaks



a mall in umeda


me, japanese kid and tom. after we made some horrible pancakes and ate them.

*if you want to know what i have been listening to lately
give this splendid band a chance
the band's name is m83. sounds like the 80's (the good part of the 80's) and that's never a bad thing.

I'll have regular...

Wow, it's quite a while since I have typed something on here. I guess it is a mix of being a bit lazy and me not having much to write about. Last week at my school was a bit busy. The 1st term has finished and the students had exams.

This weekend was busy as well. Friday night I went to eat. I went to this tiny place by my apartment. I always enjoy that place because the cooks are very nice and they make great food! Afterwards I went home and fell asleep. Saturday I met my friends Tom, Tom and Tom. Yes three Tom's in one night. haha We went to eat Italian food, played some arcades and we sang a bit of Karaoke. It was a good night. Afterwards I went back to UK Tom's apartment. We played some a soccer game on Playstation and watched the opening match of Euro 2008. I slept at Tom's apartment because Sunday morning we were going to do a community event in Tom's city. On Sunday Tom and I went to play games and cook pancakes with parents and elementary school students in Daito city. I was quite fun and the children were so dumbfounded by meeting foreigners. We had a good time.

Back to work this week. I'll be back sometime this week to write something I guess.

peace

vince

June

So it's June and time is really flying. This month is my blog's birthday. My first blog post was on June 26th 2007. It's crazy that I have almost been in Japan for 1 year. So many things I have experienced here. Nobody has come to visit me so far. I don't know if anyone ever will actually. Anyway May is gone and I hope every one will have a great month!

This past weekend was quite good. Last Friday I had to attend an English teachers party. Actually it was a party for English teachers and Foreign language teachers. There were about 15 people total. We ate at a restaurant that served everything tofu. The bottom floor of the restaurant was where they made tofu. The top of the tiny building had a small restaurant that served the tofu that they made at the bottom. Let's just say it was all fresh food. It was delicious. I was skeptical about eating all tofu, but I was very surprised at how good and filling the food was. Afterwards, I went home because I was a little tired. Well I hope you all are doing good. I have been quite happy lately, I'm a lucky guy! Take care!

peace

vince