Halloween Tokyo 2010 Gachapin

I don't like to smell my own farts but everyone said my costume was the best. that meant people were taking pictures of me and with me every 3 seconds for a whole night. Sure there are plenty of pics with guys too but who wants to see those? I'm just giving the customer what they want. Benny didn't photog this very well but i'm riding a giant wave sculpture in Roppongi midtown. Thanks to benny for taking over photography duties or else i wouldn't have any photos to show. Like every Halloween it was super lewd land with legs, and cleavage everywhere. Cleavage in Japan is a rarity because for some unknown reason you never see that.   Here is gachapin sensei at the front of a classroom full of chinese students who have no idea why i am doing this. Eun Jung is not ammused. No high fives were recieved that day. Ogino sensei had to tie my shoes when i left because i couldn't reach them. What a nice mom. long day at the office. I was also hung over this day too because of a friends birthday party the night before. Out on the street one the Chinese students is asking me what on earth i'm doing. All night people had to go into my pockets and pants to give me my wallet and phone because i can't reach them. People would hit my costume and be laughing and saying Gachapin and punching me in the back, like affectionate punches. Even girls. Usually when you like something you don't punch it or hit it unless you're like in elementary school and you like a girl so you kick her a$$. on 2 separate occasions some meatheads (they were caucasian, wearing tight tees) punched my fake forehead. both times they asked me if they could do it and then they did it. WTF? they asked me! Due to the nature of my costume i'm powerless to do anything about it. the last time it happened i seriously wanted to fight the guy but by the time i got my costume off he was gone off somewhere in the club, and it wouldn't have mattered anyway because he wouldn't even know why i wanted to fight him because just for some reason they want to punch the cardboard forehead, thats why its so weird and a pinch of funny that these bros have some meathead animal urge to punch this green forehead. Anyway this is what i have to go through to bring a little joy to the world. But it was worth it. check me out getting epic air slapping this tree branch Some final tidbits: 1. Tons of guys kept saying i would meet tons of girls and get tons of numbers but in the end i'm still a guy in a huge stupid green costume and maybe they can't make the disconnect betwn that visual and the fact that there is a human on the other side of it. So that only happened to a lesser extent. 2. I lucked out and the typhoon that was swirling around earlier that day disappeared. or else i would be wearing a limp soggy piece of cardboard. 3. These kind of costumes definitely are always a crowd pleaser, so if you really want to make an impact, i can recommend this kind. What should i be next year? ideas? 4. I have 3 lumps on my head now, 1 from the taxi accident. and two on the sides where my face went into the head hole. I guess its because somehow i blocked out the pain and wore the thing almost the whole night. 5. Kids are really scared of me when i wear this thing. 6. It was a different experience this time because I was actually in the land where gachapin was created and everyone knows him so he recieved a warm welcome from everyone as opposed to say, Totoro in new york where only a few people know him. 7. Another successful Halloween for the books. 8. never buy a Casio Exilim digital camera, it sucks all around and the battery life sucks really really bad. i don't have a ton of pics because of this. I can't lie anymore about how much i eat mcdonald's in asia (Beijing and Tokyo). Probably once a week if you count the random 100 yen snack burgers or morning 100 yen breakfast sandwiches. but before you judge me, YOU try eating noodles and rice every day for 2 years and not want to eat mcdonalds. Basically mcdonalds equals cheap satiating rib sticking food that i desperately need in a land where rice burns up in 10 minutes. and besides its different in Japan. take this amazing looking creation for example. thats german sausage under that chicken! Its really pathetic but I was so excited about this but then i found out that it's not that good. :(

Before halloween

So I did do the all you can eat Whopper thing the day after the marathon. My goal was 4 whoppers but i only got to 3. There is a 30 minute time limit and it take time to order new whoppers and have them bring it to you so it is impossible to get 4 whoppers unless you're a proffesional. Yes for everyone saying that was a stupid idea, yes, yes it was. i felt super gross afterwards. all that mayonnaise and ketchup filling all the nooks and crannies in my stomach. Yummm My new class is like 20 chinese kids around 20 yrs old, 1 nigerian guy, 1 korean girl, 1 french girl, and Alan who is chinese american and can speak mandarin with all the chinese kids. Its basically like China in the classroom now. Everyone is always talking loudly in chinese, eating, listening to their ipods, etc... Our teacher is too nice of a guy to lay down the law. Def not a good learning situation. Anyway they actually organized a karaoke session which is different because my old class never organized anything. They didn't drink anything which is amazing and sad. how can you sing karaoke without a drink? all those drinks on the table are soft drinks I made my own shoes. It took like 6 hours. it took a lot longer to get the pattern right, and find the materials. this is after wearing it for a couple days because i forgot to take a pic of the final product. Maybe they would last a month before being completely destroyed. My sewing game is not that tight. Anyway I'm gonna try to make more. I don't know about the US but in Japan everyone is wearing this style of shoe. I met my neighbors for a drink at this cool old place around the corner from us. One last sangria picnic in yoyogi park before it got cold. Yoon Nam style with a touch of pineapple juice. Everyone had bubbles. even the girls below had bubbles. I was thinking that's pretty lame and then my friend pulled out bubbles. I was obligated to try, and then I was making bubbles and feeling super lame and liking it. Bubbles are cool. I'm just sayin' they had incense too. I guess this is why parks are cool, cuz you can sit around and try to figure out what peoples' deals are. Our school made us all go to this Student technical school/art school/beauty school/etc... "festival" in ikebukuro. It sucked real bad. On the way i saw the confiscated bike truck. F'ing a-holes I hate them! The bolt cutters. f'ing a-holes. I always wondered what they did about bike that were locked to the railing, but i guess they just cut the locks. locks are f'ing expensive a-holes! the whole thing was really lame. they had these game stations too so that made it even worse. ring toss. planning for my halloween costume. Gachapin is what i was last year, i wore that store bought suit cuz i didnt have time to make a costume and just arrived in Japan. Gachapin is a children's show character who is super skilled at everything including skydiving, skateboarding, break dancing, water skiiing, etc... I found a box near my house on my first try. I wish It was a lot bigger because This is the smallest cardboard japanese cartoon costume thus far. I guess its ok because Japan is smaller and its pretty crazy trying to get this thing on a rush hour train! it took about 6 hours to make this thing. back hurtin' but i think the results were worth it! my roomates wide angle lense is pretty awesome. he has the exact same camera as me but has this $750 wide angle lens and some other ones too. yea i wish it was as big as the ones in the past. my old teacher Ogino sensei. she had to tie my shoes for me too when i left because i couldn't reach them. I went to school today wearing this. Its even funnier because my school is like 80% chinese and chinese people don't know about halloween so I heard reports of all the chinese people asking what i was doing and what's wrong with me. They thought i'm just a big pervert weirdo that came to school like that for no reason. hahahah. I mean i was the only person who came wearing a costume at all and probably like 1 of 20 people that even know what Halloween is. so you can imagine their surprise. one of my rotating teachers that you've seen here before, Hashimoto sensei. And i have to say it is super super hot wearing that polyester suit. my new sensei on the right top, renee from ny on the right, my old sensei on my left, Kaire-san from shanghai with the orange hair and my two old korean classmates. some japanese girl looked up and saw me and jumped two feet in the air and then ran by all angry like but her friend was laughing and said hello. That's basically the reaction i get when i'm not wearing a costume. I make babies cry. See you on Halloween! Gachapin is goin' dancin'

Mie Half Marathon

I ran a half marathon (21 km or 13 miles) in Mie prefecture in Komono town. Fumika's family was running it so they asked me to join them. I did it in 1 hour 42 minutes and 35 seconds, smashing my goal of 2 hours! It was pretty awesome, its the country side of Japan and it was sunny and the weather was perfect. It was surreal running by this unfamiliar Japanese landscape with 3,000 Japanese people in the sun out in who knows where in Japan. Definitely a great experience. all along the trail there were locals posted up cheering people on. As for runners there were tons of small women, tons of small dudes, tons of old people, and tons of small and old dudes and women. and tons of them where kicking my arse. somehow they can move their legs enough times a minute more than me. Running in this situation definitly made me run faster as i would say "what the F, that little 65 yr old grandma is beating me, I gotta pass her" that little box times you in and out when you cross the finish line. Another cool thing was that i only saw 3 foreigners (visibly saw, i mean im a foreigner too but i just blend in). so when i told them my name at registration they were surprised. 3,000 people at 7 am getting ready fumikas mom made onigiri and her awesome sandwhiches. some of it came in this awesome box that reads "My name is meatball and it means a strong, tough and sharp man. I try very hard to keep any cuteness out but some very odd people say I'm cute. It's a shame" there's always a bunch of meaningless setup stage crap at events in Japan. maybe i don't really go to events in NY so i have a skewed perspective. I made it. I'm pretty happy with my time, i basically gave it a good effort, I could have squeezed a little more out but I gave it 95% i would say. Picalo from Dragon Ball-Z finishes limping across. I also saw a guy dressed as a nurse, I guy running with a tuba, and a few other weirdnesses but since its somewhere far out in japan there wasn't too much craziness. I sweat so much that you could harvest the salt. fu-balls ran the 5K in 36 min. i ran a half, her dad ran a half marathon in 2hrs and 2 minutes. and her mom ran a 10k in like 1 hr and 12 min. Her dad has been running marathons since 1998, about 5 a year. her mom since 2002 maybe, she said she has run about 40 marathons so that means her dad has run like 60+ marathons! Fu-nutz parents are amazing. final time certificates. I was number 260 out of 857 males aged 40 and below. A rice cleaner at a vegetable market. farmers come in and clean their raw rice here before it goes into bags. it's like a coinstar for rice! not really amazing dinner. sukiyaki. they give you this special chunk of fat with the mean that is used on the pan and for flavor. her brother that is rarely seen caught this fish some old fotos from fumika's camera from when bob was here. Gotemba beach in Aichi prefecture. maybe the bobbest picture of Bob you will ever see. oh man So do i have it in me for another half marathon or a full marathon? yes. but i have bad knees and they hurt after running even 5 km so i think i will just do 1 full marathon and then i have to give up long distance running or i will be in serious trouble later on.