June 24th

Naoya left this morning to go to Lacrosse Camp for the week.


This is where the journal from 2006 ends. I did more cool stuff, but got too burned out to keep writing entries. Thanks for reading!

June 23rd

Today was the big performance day for our Labo group. We went to the center at 11 in the morning, and they rehearsed until like 2:00. About 40 or so people showed up, There were some littler kids with their own skits, and the Prometheus skit went OK. After the skits we sang some songs, and tried to play some games. Telephone didn't really work too well, as many of the younger kids didn't really understand it, and had to have the phrase repeated multiple times. Charades didn't work that great either, as there were too many people, and the rules of the game got a little twisted through translation. Everyone had fun trying, though. I got to go up and give another album presentation and juggle a bit, too.

Then we had kind of a little celebration tea party, with little snacks and stuff. I pulled out the hacky sack, and a lot of people joined. Some of the kids were really good, too, despite a few misplaced volleys that went over the drink table.

After that, all the senior group went out to an Italian restaurant for a few hours. We had a pretty good time, lots of chatting and laughing. We went to a BaskinRobbins afterward, they were having a three-for-two matsuri sale.

The bike ride home was fun. It was pretty dark, and Hiro and Naoya were sharing the same bike. Chie and Yukiko were going kinda far ahead on a long dark stretch of bike path alongside the channel, and Hiro and Naoya were falling behind me. I blinked or something, and they were all gone. Turned out Hiro and Naoya had stopped to change places and hadn't said anything, and Chie and Yukiko had gone around a turn way ahead of me. Everything was fine, but it kinda startled me and I wont be forgetting that moment anytime soon, in the middle of I-don't-know-where with no one around in the dark.

June 22nd

Naoya had lacrosse practice for the day, so Kozue took me out to a nearby Labo party's performance. It was all younger kids, and they put on a few simple plays and skits. There was a nice rendition of "Puss in Boots", and another act that involved pulling up a huge radish. After those, I got volunteered to go up and do a presentation with my album, and I showed them some hacking tricks.

In the evening, Naoya took me out the Matsuri summer festivities. The town closed off the main street, lined it up with booth vendors, and the whole population crowded there. It was like the WEF, but with beer. A lot of people were dressed in kimonos, and there was a lot of little games to play, and stalls selling variously singed I-don't-want-to know-what, little toys like squirt guns and masks of popular anime characters, and even TCG singles. There were these cool japanese snow cone things, where they shaved the block of ice in front of you. There was a concert area, but the music playing when I stopped by there wasn't that great. Naoya and I hacked for a while, but I don't think anyone knew what the heck it was, much less joined.

On the way back, we stopped by a conbini and got some ice cream. When we got back, Hiro was miffed that we didn't get him any.

June 21st

We didn't have much going on today. We went shopping at a kind of random food store that had imported foods, plus a bunch of japanese junk food. Naoya and I both got 200円 worth of candy, and we got some fettucini and alfredo sauce, as well.

We watched the Prince of Tennis Futari no Samurai movie while I tried to figure out how to eat the candy. There were these little plastic tubes of cream that you put in your mouth and chewed on to get the cream out, and then spat out the wad of plastic. There was also what seemed to be underripe ume plums in sugar water, that you pretty much had to gnaw on to eat.

We had a nice dinner, too... a normal japanese dinner supplemented with alfredo. It was pretty good, and the Yokoos seemed to like it too.

July 20th

"What was that bright explosion over there? Fireworks?"
"No, I think it was a bird."

It wasn't raining today, so Naoya went to lacrosse practice. Kozue took me to a local park, and we went for a nice walk. They had gardens, a baseball field, a dirt soccer field, tennis courts, and like 50 totem poles made by graduating elementary school students. Apparently she's planning a Labo barbecue there, so I'll get to come back.

Naoya and I tried hacking out in front of his house after he got back. He loves the game, and he's pretty innate at it, too. The biggest hurdle for him was the not saying "I'm sorry", but he's not any worse then me now. We were out there for a good two or three hours, until it was time to go to a Labo meeting.

The first part of the meeting was the elementary school group, they were practicing a play of Alice in Wonderland, the part with the Queen of Hearts. I brought a hacky sack, and played with them a bit during the breaks, but mostly it was just sitting and watching. I looked out the window, trying to read some of the signs on the street, and found a sign saying "igo" next door. I think it was a go parlor.

After the younger kids' practice, we went to the conbini across the street for dinner. I got an inari instant udon, an umeboshi onigiri, and some other stuff. We took it back to the center to eat, but we went to a different room for the older kid's meeting. Turned out it was a tatami room with a bunch of go and shogi boards stacked up on the wall. After we ate, the group practiced their play while I played a game of go with myself on one of the nicest boards I've touched, one of the big ones with legs like in Hikaru no Go. White won, 49 to 47 not including komi. I made some pretty dumb moves, too. I would make a move, look up for a while, look back down at the board, and go "woah... how'd that hole get there?" and proceed to kick my own ass.

One of the girls brought a package of plastic pocky, and if you took the wrong one, they'd all shoot out at you. I didn't pick the wrong one, despite her offering it to me like three times.

July 19th

"Where's the shampoo?"
"Oh, just squish the pig."

It's been raining for several days now, but it's really starting to pick up. Two of Naoya's lacrosse practices have been cancelled, so we've been sleeping in a bit.

I got dad's package! Some psychic ethereal force commended him to send me an extra pair of shorts, and I'm really glad he did. Now if Kozue-san misses a day on the laundry, I'm not screwed. (Thanks, Jeanette!) The hacky sacks are perfect, too, just what I needed... I've been somewhat deprived of sacking for the last month.

We watched the Naruto Movie 2. Naoya was pretty geeked out over my iPod AV connecter, and he's put it on his list for the next time he visits Akihabara. Both he and Hiro have the same iPod I do, they both like music a lot.

July 18th

Naoya took me shopping today... apparently it's culturally acceptable for Japanese guys to spend more time then my mom in clothes stores. We went to some obscure fashion district near his station, with tons of clothes shops.

I still don't really get the fascination buying clothes yields, but we managed to spend a good chunk of the day there. Naoya got his polo shirts for lacrosse camp, and I got to look at more engrish T-shirts than I ever cared to. You'd think it would be fun, but most of them aren't as ironic or funny as the ones you see on the web, just nonsensical. Like what the monkeys banged out before they pulled off "Hamlet".

After we got back to the station, Naoya called his mom, but she couldn't pick us up since she was just going to a labo meeting. So, we walked the nice 15 minute walk back to his house. Once we arrived, we discovered that she had locked us out of the house. So, after half an hour of climbing around the house failing to get in, we decided to take the bikes on the 20 minute ride into town to find his mom. After getting lost and finally finding our way to the community center, the community center didn't know what a "labo" was. We looked around, and found them in a closed room on the third floor.

In exchange for the key, she ushers me in in front of 10 toddlers and their parents, and has me do a self introduction speech in Japanese. After that, we get back on the bikes and go back home, dodging pedestrians. Oh yeah, it was raining the whole time, so we got to ride the bikes while holding a more or less ineffective umbrella in one hand.

We were pretty wiped after that, so we played some video games for a while before going to bed. Gitaru Man is pretty fun, but we've only got one song unlocked for multiplayer. (Gitaru man is made by the same people who did Ouendan, btw)

July 17th

Went to Akihabara with Naoya today. There's an express line that goes straight there from his station, in less then 20 minutes.

We spent most of the day there, exploring the backstreets and finding a lot of awesome stuff. If I ever want to build a PC, I would go there... tons of used dirt cheap stuff, for blocks and blocks. We visited the Apple store there, too. Tallest apple store in the world, I bet, it was like 6 floors.

I bought the rest of the Azumanga Daioh books, some gifts, a few more games, and an ice cream crepe. I swear, I could save enough money in Akihabara to counter the national debt... if only saving money wasn't so expensive. Sigh.

July 16th

This morning Naoya went to lacrosse practice at like 6 in the morning. I kinda slept in. I talked with Hiro a lot about his experience in the US (he spent a school year in Virginia), and wrapped him up in an english quiz test thing on my kanji dictionary. He's easily the most fluent in english of all the Japanese people I've met.

After that, we went to a LABO meeting at a community center. It's just the senior group, but there were like 10 people there. They're finalizing a play they've been working on, "Prometheus and the Gift of Fire". It's pretty impressive, how they're able to do plays without props or costumes.

I got to show off some more juggling, and one of the girls even knew how already. Naoya managed to pull off three catches pretty fast, within five minutes of picking up the balls. He hasn't gotten much further than that, though.

July 15th

Yokoo house

Happy Birthday, Julia, but I think the gift I got today kinda pwns all yours' put together. I got a new host family, they're awesome!

I woke up a little later than I planned to, and almost missed breakfast. At our orientation, Victoria and a whole bunch of people had to leave during it, because they were being picked up or going to other parts of Japan. Our induction ceremony ended up having like 15 people out of maybe 80. I was a lot more confident this time, and didn't choke up on the podium.

The Yokoo family is awesome! Naoya is 16 years old, and already on summer vacation. He's been taking English for four years, and he's more or less fluent. Everyone else in the family is more or less fluent, too, especially Hirokazu.

After the ceremony, they took me to the Tocho government building, and this time we went in the south tower. The view from up there is amazing, and I got some photos this time. After that we visited Kouki's work, that curvy skyscraper I always walked by on the way to school. They had an art museum in there, and the collection was pretty impressive, it included Van Gogh's "Still Life with Twelve Sunflowers".

After a stop at an udon shop, we took the train home to Matsudo, in the Chiba prefecture. I met Kazuki and Hirokazu too, they're both pretty cool. Hiro lives in a dorm at his university and has to study a lot, but he comes back to the house for the weekends.

Before we went to bed, Naoya pulled out his Gamecube and proceeded to school me in the art of Daigasso Smash Brothers DX. I wasn't really in form, but I don't think the results would've been any different had I been.