Crazy Train Ride

I was on a crowded train and, you know how trains in Japan are usually dead silent with very few people talking to each other and nobody talking on a cell phone, well I see one guy (who, I could tell from the twinkle in his eyes, that he wasn't exactly the orangest pumpkin in the pumpkin patch) eye me up and starts walking toward me.  When he gets about 10 feet away from me, he holds up this picture, points to a tree and shouts "WHATS THIS?"

I say "ki" (Japanese for tree) and he screams "A TREE!!" then punches me pretty hard in the arm.  At this point everyone in the train was staring at us and I try to ignore him, but 2 seconds later I hear again "WHATS THIS?" I look over and he's pointing to a cloud, I say "a cloud."  And he shouts even louder, "A CLOUD!!" then smacks me in the same exact same place.

The same thing repeats with him pointing to other random things and I just start spinning in circles so he stops punching me in the same places.  One punch lands on the other arm, another square on my chest and I finally just get up and walk to another part of the train.

Of course, he follows me and now tries to start up a conversation.  "where are you from?" He asks.  "America, how about you?"  I reply.  "OOOOHH AMERICA!!!!" he says, then throws a punch to my arm that would make Mike Tyson jealous.  So I get up and walk 5 cars down to the very back of the train.

He again follows me and this time I take the initiative, since all of his questions result in me getting whacked.  "Where are you from?" I say.  "AOMORI!!" he replies, and I see him winding up, but before he throws a punch, I say "Where in Aomori?" He responds "noheji."

At this point my heart skips a beat because that's where I live too and that means we are heading to the same spot.  Luckily I distract him tons of pointless questions for the last 10 minutes of the train ride before we finally arrive in Noheji.  I push my way through a few people and make my way to the door and it finally hits him that I'm getting off at the same stop that he is.

"OOOHHH NOHEJI MOOO" He screams, and I'm like "yep" just then the train comes to a complete stop.  I see him winding up for one last heymaker, the doors begin to open, I am the first one through the door and he still goes through with the punch, but I am out the door fast enough to dodge it.  I do my best hurried Japanese run/walk thing and haven't seen him since.

Every time I go to the grocery store I always keep an eye out for him though.

Third Humble Off

I was a member of a humble off today.  On my way to the morning teachers meeting, I reached for the door to leave the teachers room and it opened with unexpected ease.  To my surprise, one of the office assistants was entering the room and we opened the door at the same time and started a pretty brutal humble off.

I stood for a half a second before stepping to the side and saying "dozo!" (that means please, go ahead) but instead of walking through the door, she stepped to the side and one upped me, saying "dozo, dozo."  I wasn't about to just walk through the door quite yet so I gave her a "dozo, dozo" slightly bowing with each "dozo."  The rest was difficult to remember.  Before long, we were each yelling at each other "DOZO!" and I was giving my crappy American-style-barely-bending-at-the-waist bows with each "DOZO!" and she was giving a full Japanese professional 90 degree, back parallel to the floor bow with each "DOZO!"  I could not keep up with her pace, I began getting a little light headed and admitted defeat after about 15 "dozo's" and walked through the door, but I gave her a "ohayo gozai masu!!" (good morning) as a departing gift as I went down the stairs.

Christmas Cards

We made Christmas cards in class today.  There were some awesome cards, but this one stands out: "Dear Santa, I want a girlfriend!! because I want to make a happy time If you giveme that, I will be impressed.  This year become also alone christmas will a vainfull of chistmas..."  Then he drew an awesome, awesome picture.  On one side, labeled "dream" he has him holding hands with another person.  On the other side, labeled "real" he shows him on the ground crying next to a Christmas tree and the words "tree is not speaking" written along the bottom.

2年4HR Assignment

Today my supervisor introduced an assignment for one of her classes where students have to come into the teachers room and ask me 3 questions in English.  Only 4 students have come in so far, but I can tell that this is going to be fun.  I'll keep a list of the fun questions that they ask me:

Have you ever been shot?

How did you first meet your fiancee?

Do you have big body parts?

Have you ever been in situation where you thought you would be shot? (This kid was very smart, most students at Noheji couldn't put together a nice long sentence like this, but he did forget the a between in and situation.)

What do you think of North Korea and South Korea?

Are there homosexuals in American High Schools?