Zarbaraki

Tuesday, 14 October 2014

ALT Soccer Tournament

For a group of 20, we hired two mini-vans to drive across Japan from Ibaraki to Nagano. There, we took part in the ALT Kanto soccer tournament. It was a very expensive weekend, but it was well worth it. You might say it was a highly enjoyable weekend. You might just.

After volunteering to play for the Tochigi girls team, who needed a couple extra players, I learnt that my true calling in life is in fact soccer. For the first time having played, I discovered I'm a natural. I was also told by one of the less intimidated girls from one of the other teams that I play "aggressively". I scored two goals in two separate games, and had a very fun day.

In the evening, everyone who was a part of the tournament partied on down and I met some genuinely cool Alts from different parts of Japan. Although I've never been a lover of sports related events, it was one of the few things that filtered out a lot of Japanophile-otaku-weirdoes, and thus left a large group of relatively normal, nice, friendly people. How relieving, a home comfort I had almost forgotten about.

Anyway, I can count on Tommy's girlfriend, Mamina, to take a shit-tonne of photographs so that I don't have to strain my precious fingers by typing words which could otherwise be told through other means:

To quote "Withnail and I"; GET IN THE BACK OF THE VAN:

Aren't road trips just the best?:

Pre-game genkiness:

Warming-up on Saturday morning:

In the end, it didn't matter how hard we stretched. Our entire bodies were in immense pain for most of the next week following the tournament:

Riley and Yukiko lead the cheering:

The Ibaraki boys team having a meeting before their first of many defeats:

If John Dicks is there, you know its going to be a good time:

Many of the American players in our team had also never experienced soccer. luckily a photograph is something that captures a momentary still-image, creating the false illusion of talent:

Looking proud after realizing they are coming last:

Yukiko offers comfort to her injured boyfriend, AKA laurence:

Although he subscribes to the philosophy that "its the taking part that counts", his eyes say otherwise. Chris Gilbert, football hooligan:

Danyo wonders when the humiliation will be over as he looks for emotional and physical support:

well, we lost, but at least our haircuts are still great..... but were they really?:

Saitama super crew. AKA Saiborgs:

Have you heard of "zooming in"?:

After realising that he might not be able to pursue a career as a professional football, in his desperation, Gilbert turns to being a gigalo:

Everyone was pretty tired after a whole day of playing sports. We sports pretty hard you might say:

Those mini-vans doe:

Tuesday, 30 September 2014

Hong Kong

I went on a last minute holiday to Hong Kong with Grace and Addie, (friends I made studying in Bristol). It was pretty amazing that we managed to meet up, Grace flew over from Delhi, and I, Tokyo. We stayed at her very nice apartment aka. childhood home. We ate some amazing local food and got to hang out with Addie's parents who were very chill. We also got to see a lot of Jess, Addies best mate who we had met before in Bristol. We went shopping, hiked up a mountain to an infinity pool, went to a roof-top bar over-looking the city, went to the market at Stan Lee, took a crap load of different forms of transport, trains, ferries, taxis, minibuses, you name it.

heres some piccie pics:

There's a One Piece ship in the middle of Hong Kong time square:

Jess (left side) is Addie's best friend from Hong Kong, she's frikin awesome just to clarify.

Me and Grace outside the front of Addie's apartment:

Let's go on an adventure:

At the top of a mountain, on the side of an infinity pool:

Addie and z, my hair at it's shortest in my entire life:

I had a personalised t-shirt printed:

Addie's parents were amazing. They drove us around, showed us the sights, took us for amazing meals, let us stay with them at their very very nice apartment and even took us for dinner one night at the yauht club. I love them. Dominic and Irene rock my world.

Dim sum:

The best flights I could find had a stop over in Taipei:

car-venture

Hey, this car is stopped at a red light. I guess that means I should climb in

Monday, 29 September 2014

Gunma weekend

Photos at the bottom:

I just came back from a sweet-as weekend.

I went with Riles, Robbie, Tiff, Mac and Randy to Minakami, Gunma for a "JET Adventure Mixer". We did everything through the Canyons Japan company. AWESOME. Drove down the night before which turned out to be a good call. Takes three hours to get there from Mito.

On Saturday we woke up early for Canyoning. We had to wear so much stuff, two layers of wet-suit, special shoes and socks, special gloves, life coat thing, helmet.... got loaded up in a mini-bus, taken to the "nature spot" and went on our very well planned out, over-protected "adventure" with many guides holding our hands the whole time. What an adrenaline rush.

Despite my sarcasm, I was a massive baby. However, about half way through I took a sneaky wee in my wet-suit (ignoring their warnings not to) and that managed to calm me down. We went back, had the best burger of my life and then got ready for rafting.

Rafting was my favourite part of the day, I for sure enjoyed it waaaay more than canyoning, but its probably because the water-level was particularly low, so the water was slow-moving and there wasn't anything rapid about it. It was more of a leisurely boat ride with paddles and an Australian guide who I was able to mock for the entirety of the trip. Also there were people bungee-jumping over-head, so that was really cool to watch. Being in a raft looking up and being able to watch someone bungee jump about 20 meters in front of you. From this I learnt that I don't ever want to go bungee jumping. Ever...sky-diving, maybe.

There was a point where they turned one of the rafts up-side down on the side of the river and we could use it like a trampoline and dive into the water. Proud to say I managed to do a front flip into the water. The trick to it, which I learnt from my raft instructor is to "try kiss your bum"... useful to know. Riley took a bad fall, landing on her ankle all funny, and was pretty much out of action for the remainder of the weekend.

When we got back there was a lot of showering and wet-suit peeling off, changing and relaxing. In the evening was a big DIY BBQ, which seemed like a terrible idea at the time, but in retrospect it was a good "bonding" experience, as we all had to work together to try cook the minimal amount of food we were given. There were 4 bbq's going, I didn't think I knew much about making a bbq, but I realised that I knew waaaay more about it than a lot of the people there, so I ended up being a sort of director for one of the bbq's, it felt pretty good giving people orders, and having them follow without question, stunned at my brilliant confidence and cowering at my fierce leadership skills (possible exaggeration? never).

A reggae band played, drinks were drunk, dancing occurred, one man tried to go for a swim on a pool table to which one of the guides working at the lodge's response was "please stop, this is how the pool table got broken two weeks ago". We got to know some of the Gunma JET's which was good. First time I've met normal JET's from another prefecture. It seems they have a pretty fun crew... well, disregarding the obvious load of freaks and geeks sprinkled about, an inevitability in Japan gaijin life, but on the whole I was medium to somewhat impressed.

I actually love meeting groups of JET's from other prefectures, its like peering into a parallel universe of what life might have been if I was placed elsewhere.

On the Sunday I went with Riley, Robbie and Tiff to an incredible Onsen. The Takaragawa Onsen in Gunma is one of the most famous Onsens in Japan. It was so beautiful, all outdoors and mixed, meaning we had to cover up with towels on (well, the women did...), very relaxing. The four of us had a chilled road-trip getting home, listening to Elton John, Frankie Valli and a bunch of other old-school stuff..

Another great weekend adventure, brought to you by Japan. Sayonara suckers xx