Need an excuse to go to Kyoto?

As many of you know, I have been running and training regularly for the first time since I graduated high school and quit running competitively. Since then, I gained more than 60 pounds (about 27 kilograms), and slowly but surely my health had deteriorated.

After having cancer (did you know I had cancer? Well...I had cancer.) and my wife being only weeks away from having our daughter, I figured that it was high time to get back on the horse. I registered for the Kobe marathon, only to find out that my registration was filled out one day too late and that I wouldn’t be allowed to run in it.

Fast forward (or rewind as it were) to last September. I learned about a marathon in South Osaka and decided to enter it. When I went to register on the second day of registration, it was already completely full and again, I was disappointed by a lack of entry into the marathon.

Still dying to legitimately run a marathon, I came across the Kyoto International Marathon. I had to enter my name into a lottery and then wait for it to be picked out of a hat sometime between late September and Oct. 31^st. I got an email in early November that they had delayed the decision until the 25^th of November (facepalm).

So fast forward again to present day (literally – today). I received an email from the Kyoto International Marathon informing me that I was accepted into the race and that I will be allowed to run on March 11, 2012!

Now, why am I telling you all this? What is the purpose of me getting into a certified marathon? Why don’t I just jump the gates and start running?

The answer to the third question is simple: I like the numbers that we get for our shirts and I want one.

The other two can be summed up very simply. If you didn’t know, I had cancer and I want to run this marathon as a charity to a kids’ cancer foundation.

I have decided after much consideration that I have to give to a children's cancer charity in Japan. I have also decided that I can't forget where I come from and a camp that a certain friend of mine went to as a child and works at today; I have decided to split the donations between two foundations - the Children's Cancer Association of Japan and Camp CoHoLo in Nebraska.


The Children's Cancer Association of Japan (日本語のサイト)　is the only NPO in Japan dedicated to children with cancer. It provides support to families who have children with cancer in the form of counseling, moral support, in some circumstances financial support, they train volunteers for hospital work, and they even put on an annual summer camp for children. Their work began in 1968 and their work has positively affected thousands of families throughout the Japanese archipelago.


I was introduced to Camp CoHoLo (Short for Courage Hope and Love) by a friend of mine who I grew up with in Omaha, Nebraska. This is a short term summer camp put on for children who grow up with cancer and severe blood disorders. It has been an annual event that has grown from a one-week camp for 22 children to a split group for 6 to 17 year-olds over the course of two weeks. The camp counselors include a dedicated "volunteer staff at Camp CoHoLo [that] includes pediatric hematology/oncology physicians and nurses from the Nebraska Medical Center and Children's Hospital and Medical Center who maintain strict medication schedules and monitor the health of all campers." Camp CoHoLo received the Heartland Better Business Bureau Integrity Award in May of 2005 for their service to youth in Mid-America.

Personally? I don’t pretend that cancer is something that I think I can change. I don’t intend to. I don’t pretend that giving a donation to a group like Camp Coholo or the CCAJ will make anybody live longer. I don’t pretend about cancer. Period. I had it - I had a weak version of it and it sucked like nothing has ever sucked before. All I intend to do is to make the quality of life better for kids who really haven’t had a chance to be a kid because they were busy going through chemo or some other form of torture that comes with the territory of having terminal illness.

I’m not pretending that I, alone, can beat cancer. But with charitable donations, WE can make life a little more bearable for children that got stuck with it.

Please feel free to contact me on Facebook or Twitter (@Kobentino) to inquire about donations.

And by all means, feel free to come up to Kyoto on March 11 to cheer me on!

Ferrets, Cheese and other Ponderings

It comes as no surprise that Japan has been on a course of self-preservation since the late 1940’s.

With all they have been through, who wouldn’t try.

What is a surprise is their method, their ‘mode de opérationnelle’, their

‘modus operandi’, their ‘anwendungsmodus’, if you may.

You see, it has come to my attention that the Japanese plan to have their entire country and culture recognized by UNESCO.

For example:

http://whc.unesco.org/en/statesparties/jp

http://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/state=jp

But this takes the red bean paste cake!

Now Japan wants its cuisine recognized by UNESCO.

Why?

Because the Mexicans did it, that’s why.

That’s right folks. The entire gastronomy of Mexico is right up there the with the French and Mediterranean diets. Yup. They are on the List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

Which I think is totally awesome. After all who doesn’t like Taco Bell?

Yessir! Now when y

ou think of the greatest foods man has ever created, think Fajitas, Chimichangas, Spider Monkeys and Doritos.

Personally I am totally stoked! Cause,

nothing says lovin’ like a Spider Monkey in the oven!

But Japan??

What delicacies has Japan ever given to the world?
Nattou? Tofu? Octopus flavoured sticky things in a bag?

Certainly nothing that can compare to Doritos.

Granted Japan has Okonomiyaki, Sushi, Sashimi and… ….and Takoyaki.

All of which are very tasty and wonderful with beer (may Allah’s blessings be upon it). BUT, where are the Chimichangas???

But I digress.

Beer.Let’s forget about having our national cuisines recognized and get down to brass tacks.

You: “But Mike, food goes with beer.”

Mike: “Sure food goes with beer, but so do bicycle tires.”

And…

BEER SAVED MANKIND.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yf3YvXM9j5o

Beer is the single greatest creation that man has ever creatively

Henceforth I propose that BEER be recognized by UNESCO.created!

Now let us all bow our heads in prayer.

Our lager,

Which art in barrels,

Hallowed be thy hops.

Thou will be drunk, And I will be drunk, At home as in the tavern.

Give us this day our foamy head,

And forgive us our spillages, As we forgive those who spill against us.

And lead us not to incarceration, But deliver us from hangovers.

For thine is The Ale, The Bitter and The Lager.

Forever and ever,

Barmen

Thank you and goodnight.

MikeyB

The following was brought to you buy the fine men and women at (insert favourite brewery).

My Dream Final

disclaimer: I wrote this while slightly intoxicated and I did not edit it. Everything is from the heart as it is said in stream of thought. Don't crucify me.

Yes, we've promised you news. It hasn't come about. That's my fault because quite frankly, I wasn't ready to give the news. My personal apologies.

Here's what it is as of this moment: there is a FIFA World Cup Final that I will likely never be able to live through again. I dreamt of this moment...in my dreams. I NEVER thought for a second that the USA would meet Japan in a final ever in my life. For obvious reasons, I never saw it in the men's game. That being said, I never thought that I would see the Japanese women's team in a final against my country.

I have only cheered against Japan twice in my life before. Once was in a men's friendly before the 2006 World Cup where I saw Taylor Twellman score one helluva goal. The other time was in the 2008 Olympics where the men beat the Japanese in group stages.

I have always wished well for the Japanese team. If I didn't, that's just not fair. To this day, I wish only the best for the Japanese teams as long as they are not playing mine.

That being said, I am American. American I am, and American I will be until the day that I am called to my end. I am an American who has chosen to be an immigrant in Japan, and I love this country.

I have suffered through trying to understand the cultural differences in the beginning, I met my wife here, I have built my life here, and I love this country more than any of my friends back home will ever understand. My old buddies who have spoken to me recently will attest to that. I miss my old country, but I can't complain because this is the life I have chosen.

I now find myself on a fence that I never thought I'd be on; Japan is in the final against my country.

My wife and I have been going back and forth for the past couple of days talking about how good our teams are and how our preferred team is going to pound the other into the ground. I love it - it's good banter and I love doing it, it's fun.

If i seem like I'm digressing I apologize, I am slightly entoxicated and I feel like my emotions are taking control of me, so I take out my aggressions out on my keyboard. Let me get to the point.

A) I cheered Japan as they beat the crap out of my most hated enemy late in the evening and my wife enjoyed it with me (probably not as much as I did)
B) As the time grew closer and closer, I prayed for a Japan-USA final because I knew that this is most likely the only time it would ever happen.
C) I'm not sure what you people were expecting, but when I go to watch this game, I will shake hands with all of the Japanese supporters there, and whoever wins, I will shake their hands afterwards.

I'm sure that there will be trash talked in the in-between time, but I hold nothing against this country outside of the 90 or 120 minutes of this game.

I love this country. It has taken great care of me in one of the darkest hours of my life and I have nothing but appreciation for it. I am more than sure that any other American who supports our Lady Yanks will say the same thing.

All in all, I am blessed to be a Yank having grown up as I have, and I am an even more blessed Yank for having the freedom, ability, and experience to come over to an equally blessed country to meet my wife and have my child here.

Thank you Japan, I will only go against you for the length of this game...USA!! USA!! USA!!

Bad Idea, kid...baaaaad idea.

So I was around the 2 kilometer mark on my run today and I saw a few kids notice me (the fat white guy) running from about some 30 odd meters away. They basically laughed their ass off at me and I knew that I was going to have to bear a bit of heckling at their hands. As I passed them the laughs grew even louder as they got a profile view of my protruding gut and my enlarged arse.

Not two seconds later, one of them started following me nice and quietly in order to show of to his boyz as kids that age tend to do. How do I know he was following me? For this unfortunate little shit, it was about 5 pm and the sun was just beginning to dip down, but just above the mountains and I was headed due east.

The prick's shadow betrayed him. I stopped dead in my tracks, bent down and watched his face in pure and utter shock as he fell head over heals sprawling onto the sidewalk his bag and water bottle landing a couple of meters ahead of him.

His face stunned and slightly angered as the fat gaijin had gotten the better of him, I stood up, pointed, laughed an evil little yeah-try-it-again kind of laugh, and continued my run to the sound of his friends pissing themselves laughing and screaming "Nice joke!" in approval in their broken English as I ran off around the corner checking over my shoulder with a snicker of victory on my face.

I hold no real grudge on this kid, he was just doing what boys naturally do at that age - being a little shit. All I have to say to him is this: if you're gonna mess with the bull, expect the horns.

And the moral of the story is this: Kids, never mess with a random foreigner on the streets - they probably know how to deal with little shits like you and make your friends turn against you.

Ponderings Of A Gaijin

I came to the realization the other day that a lot of great writers have a pen name.

For example:

Aapeli (Simo Puupponen) that wacky Finnish writer

Yulgok (Yi l) the 16^th century Korean Confucian scholar

Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens) - The guy who wrote that…book…about…stuff. Haha! It was great!

Balāi Chānd Mukhopādhyāy (Игорь Всеволодович Можейко) - My favourite writer! If you ever get a chance to read Historia de una gaviota y del gato que le enseno a volar: Una novela para Jòvenes de 8 a 88 anos you will not be able to put it down.

As you can see I am in a prestigious class of writers. I too need a pen name so as to preserve my anonymity.

So as of today I will write as Ludwig P. Schleiermacher.

Now on vis zee blog!

How long have I been here??

If you’ve ever lived in a foreign country you know that people are interested in how long you’ve lived there. (Or at least they fake interest, in which case I fake being there.)

Living in Japan is no exception. I would like to add that the Japanese have a fondness for large numbers so when asked about height they use centimeters, when buying a beer at the local pub you’ll pay in the hundreds of yen and body weight is measured in yoctograms (yg, 10^-24g): 60% of a hydrogen atom. But of course, you knew that.

Keeping with Japanese culture, when asked I now respond with:

Hi I’m Ludwig P. Schleiermacher (paying off already!)

I’m 173.3 centimeters tall and 8.164662660000001e28 yoctograms.

I have been in Japan for 257,644,800* seconds.

Don’t forget to add seconds as you are standing there, people love that.

*the author acknowledges that since the writing of this blog, the time has changed.

Busy people

I love watching people on the train. Especially the lady people! Kidding aside, I often marvel at the routines people will go through so as to avoid making eye contact with anyone. In fact, they are often seen stapling their eyelids shut so as not to accidentally open them and see their reflection in the window.

One particular person that baffles me is the ‘Incredibly Busy’ person. This male or female (more often female) will take a schedule book from their bag and study it. And I mean study it like it contained the secrets of the universe. Problem is IT’S EMPTY! There is nary an appointment. Not a smudge. And as they carefully turn each blank page I try to imagine their thoughts.

Young lady – Hmm, what do I have to do today? Hmmm, nothing. Okay. How about tomorrow? Hmmm, nothing tomorrow too. How about the day after tomorrow? Hmmm, nothing as well. How about…..etc, etc, etc…*

But then! Just when I think they’ve managed to commit their schedule to memory, they enter some incredibly important, ground breaking, earth shaking information!

Young lady – (writing) Tuesday, May 10^th.

Don’t forget to check schedule tomorrow.

*this lasts as long as the commute. And once when I was traveling from Kobe to Tokyo, this young lady reached in her bag and…

Time Warp People

I love these people…in a root canal kinda way.

These people have special powers that enable them to manipulate time. I know this because when they board a train (in front of me) they slow waaaaaaaaaay down. See, they are stopping time. As soon as they cross the threshold of the train door, they stop moving. Then they look around the train as if they’ve never seen an ‘iron horse’ before.

I figure they must have stopped time or they’d realize that THEY ARE PISSING ME OFF!! GET MOVING YOU YAK HERDER!! Just get on the dam train, then take your meds, clear your head and figure out why you got on the train in the first place.

Seriously I should just start drinking Jack and smoke on the train. Anything to calm me down after putting up with this every day!

….

….

….

Okay, I feel better now.

Living in a foreign country is always interesting (except maybe North Korea) and I think I understand how aliens would feel if they existed and if they visited. That said I highly recommend living abroad..or even with a broad.

So in the immortal words of Sergeant Phil Esterhause: Hey, let's be careful out there.

MikeyB

No wait!

Ludwig P. Schleiermacher

Wew! That was close!

Enormous Breaking Flashing Board News Ticker In Times Square!!!

Gaijin For Life and the "Best F#cking Gaijin Blog Ever" is freaking BACK!!!!

I know I know! Mikey and I should feel terrible for ignoring all of our five readers for so long! Last time we posted we broke up with J-pop and we decided that England was terrible at...wait for it...SOCCERRRR!!

The fact is that since the last post, life has been a bit on the hectic side. I'm not using that as an excuse for not posting (sheer laziness can be blamed for that). However, I have been dealing with a pregnant wife (due in late July) and a life-threatening disease (I'm fine), record shattering earthquakes and subsequent tsunamis, tornadoes in the homeland that hit, Osama bin Laden sleeps with the fishes and got whacked by a SEAL (still happy about that) and Mikey has been possessed by something that crawled into his brain and squirmed around like a parasite. Mikey, I shit you not, has quit the beer.

Now be it as it may, it is a temporary lull. Three months to be exact. Ninety days. Five thousand four-hundred hours. Not that I'm counting.

Whereas I should in every way humanly possible be supporting my fellow author and partner for the "Best F#cking Gaijin Blog Ever," I must admit that this is tough.

I found out about this over Facebook (summabitch didn't even have the balls to tell me to my face) and I thought he was lying. There have been many a meatnight missed, many a balcony brews gone to waste, and Mikey, if you're reading this, I want you to know that I'm your friend and as such, I need to tell you this: You're hurting those close to you. You need help.

Seriously. Look at yourself in the mirror. You're eyes are clear, your shirt is ironed, you smell like Ivory soap, and what's this I hear about you eating a salad!? You disgust me!

Anyway, back to Japan. Has anyone ever seen roadkill in Japan before? I just saw Kitty Cat bloodied up and laying in the middle of the Flower Road/Yamate Kansen intersection today and it was a good fresh one. Let me know if anyone has seen this before.

Either way, welcome back, we hope to entertain you and make you giggle like a hyena. We'll post more soon.

Mikey, grab a beer! You're up!!

I know this hurts, but just hear me out.

Hey there! How are ya! The other night at karaoke was pretty fun, wasn't it. Man, we were both pretty drunk and I think we need to sit down and chat.

Listen, the other night. Yeah, I think we took our relationship too far and we need to take a step back. Remember when we met when I first got here six years ago and the cool thing for me to do as a new guy was to impress the co-workers with a Japanese song? We had a good time just jabbing each other in the shoulder as good friends. I know the language barrier was a bit of a big deal and it was tough to communicate. Maybe that's why we got along at first; I never really knew if you were laughing with me or at me. Truth be told? I didn't really care. I just enjoyed your company.

And then as time went on, you started dating some of my friends on and off as we became more able and more confident with our Japanese ability. Again, we had some good times at karaoke together, and sometimes in little standing bars, or sometimes, on TV when we were just curious.

But this last weekend, I think we both know, we took things a bit too far. We need to not see each other for awhile and see how things pan out.

Oh, come on now! Please don't be like that! Remember all the good times we had? Remember ringing ridiculous little bells with Kimura Kaela? Hell, we even went to the movies and watched Kill Bill just so I could learn some of your history! Turns out Kaji Meiko is not only pretty good BUT ONE OF THE MOST UNDERRATED JAPANESE SINGERS OF ALL TIME! But hey, I'm just saying! We even went to a couple of Ga Ga Ga Special concerts together and, as you know, they rocked!

I was just really hoping that we could get through this all civilly, and one day be able to just hang out in a bar with our friends English Punk Rock, Heavy Metal, and Ska. Yeah, I know that little whore American Pop shows up every now and then and ruins the night, but we can always go somewhere else. We normally run into our old buddies 80's and sometimes Grunge! Never a bad thing!

So is that cool? Can we just be friends for a bit until it's not awkward anymore?

WELL FUCK YOU THEN!! I never liked you anyway! You have done nothing but annoy me for the full six years that I have lived here and not onc...NOT ONCE!!!...have you ever done anything for me!! I have tried SOOOOOOO hard to understand you!! But do you care!? NO!! You keep putting forth the same goddamn cookie cutter effort that you have since the mid-90's! You haven't been able to keep a steady audience past high school kids, but hey! At least they like the same old crap!!!

Oh, and the whole time, I was cheating on you with Enka!!!

Now get the hell out of my way! I'm off to have a couple beers with the boys in Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra and Ska Flames! Yeah. Ska. It kicks ass and has far more originality than you!