The new gym

Since I moved I also had to change gyms. The one I am at right now is pretty cool, they have everything you need and more like a swimming pool, a sumo wrestling ring, a table tennis hall, tennis courts etc.! It’s only 250¥ for 3h which is pretty cheap too ($2.50). I have been going pretty regularly since i started working out there. I lost about 20 pounds since arriving in Japan, but I think it’s not just because of me working out but also because of the food. I am in good shape but there is still a lot of work to do until I am satisfied.

The new gym:

First things first

To update you on whats been happening I should start with my move. Yes I moved from Chiba to Asakusa Toyko 3 months ago! And I must say I like Asakusa a lot. There is tons to see and to eat around here, it’s closer to the parts of Tokyo I like (Shibuya, Harajuku…) and I have a rooftop to sit and drink beer at night or enjoy the sun on a nice day.
I also got me a TV so I can finally play some Xbox in my room and don’t have to go upstairs into the kitchen anymore. Plus I hooked it up to my MacBook so I have a second Monitor…still not like working on my 24″ iMac, which i miss dearly, but a lot better.

Here some pics:

But not everything is better at my new place…I don’t think I have to explain just take a look at my unbelievable view:

And since I live on the first floor I get visits from roaches like once a week…sucks but can’t do anything about it!

NO I am not dead….

Im not dead…and I will get back to posting things starting tomorrow! I have just been to lazy to be honest and had a lot to do….but no more sitting around surfing the net when I could be updating this blog!

Today was a good day as you can see here (plus it is proof that I am still alive and healthy):

The weather here is still nice even though we are in the middle of october it’s warm enough to walk around in shorts and a t-shirt, so I moved to the rooftop today to get some work done. It’s very nice to have a beer or two in the sun while enjoying this view…

But back to business, starting tomorrow I will update u on whats been going on these past months.

Jaa ne!!!

Yes! I’m on the Team…

…It’s not like there were any tryouts and I guess the only reason I was asked in the first place is because I maybe look like I play some ball ! But a guy from the gym came up to me a couple of weeks ago and asked me if play basketball and that they are still looking for a 5th man for their team. I said sure but never got to meet up with him and his friend until last Thursday….and God damn I suck…I realized how out of shape I am…I’m not even talking about shooting and making some points, I’m talking a bout my fitness…I was ready to die after 5 minutes gasping for air like a kid with asthma…NO JOKE!

But it still was a lot of fun and I will be there playing every week now…and I hope in a couple of weeks I’ll have a little bit more air! There were 6 teams last time and almost all of them were Japanese except my team which is made up of 4 Filipinos and me! Everybody plays everybody but its all just for fun really!

Here some pictures as always….maybe I’ll post a video in a little while when I get to know the people a little better.

Ayumi’s Dance Show

Yeah I know…..it’s been a while..! I was sick last week, it wasn’t the swine flu but bad anyways….just shows you shouldn’t go out partying and get drunk when you’re already sick…that just made it a lot worse!

Last Sunday Ayumichan from my guesthouse had a dance show and almost everybody from the house went along to watch. It was really nice too. I didn’t know what to expect first and thought it would be some small show in a high school gym maybe. But to my surprise it was a really good and big show. There where at least 50 people on stage…not all together of course and the dances performance ranged from classical ballet to hip hop. They even had a group of little kids around the age of 4 to 7 maybe. Really cute lol! And they put a lot effort in the costumes too which looked great. Unfortunately it wasn’t allowed to take pictures, but I will see if I can get some from Ayumi which took a bunch backstage.

After the show we all went to an izakaya (it’s a type of Japanese drinking establishment which also serves food….but mainly alcoholic drinks, the sake selection was huge! Basically people come here after work to get wasted)!

And we sure got drunk….It was a lot of fun and the food was very good too. I loved the french fries I had….I’m pretty sure Japanese don’t call them fries, but basically it’s the same thing, but covered in sauce similar to sweet and sour sauce…. delicious. And I like the way Japanese go about having dinner at an izakaya. Everybody just orders what they want but you share all the food and in the end the bill. Which makes sense cuz you can have something from everything. So the table is full of delicious food and you just dig into what you like.

Of course I tried some things I’ve never had before. The first was fish…now I love fish but never tried this part. At first I didn’t believe it was fish cuz it looked more like fried onions. But it did taste fishy, it was a little hard and you had to chew on it for a good while before you could swallow it. Turned out it was fish fin…and it was ok, but not my favorite to be honest (excuse the following crappy iPhone pics).

The second thing I tried that evening was bit more of a challenge. It was horse…I never had horse before but I think you should try almost everything once in life so we ordered….it turned out though that it was raw horse meat. Now Japanese eat a lot of meat raw, but western people basically cook everything. And it was really strange to chew on raw meat. It wasn’t bad at all though. If hadn’t known it was horse I probably wouldn’t have noticed…it was more the fact that it was raw then it being horse that was on my mind.

All in all the evening was a very nice experience and a lot of fun…here some more pics to give you an idea:

Ramen Boy

Although I am trying to loose some weight and build some muscles (yeah its summertime again) I had to get me a bowl of ramen and gyoza with Hiro, Taka and Kato from my guesthouse yesterday. It was my first bowl since arriving here 4 weeks ago and I forgot how good this stuff is. It will be a lot harder to stay away from ramen shops from now on!

Bob Sapp@Club99

I was out this weekend even though I should have stayed at home cuz I already felt sick a bit and now I have a major cold …!

I went to Club99 in Roppongi, the dirtiest Hip Hop club you can find in Tokyo, always filled with foreigners and hoes and everybodys just looking for one thing. Its a meat market and you really have to watch out cuz you might end up taking a Ladyboy home cuz they hang around there too. Now I wasn’t there to get my freak on I had to do some business with a guy I met the day before and I might have a little job doing flyers and stuff in the future!

Well the funny thing was I saw this big black guy across the room and I think it was Bob Sapp. For the people who don’t know him: He was a wrestler and I think a UFC fighter but now he’s an “actor” for Japanese TV. I have never seen a fight and I only know him from various Japanese commercials or other stupid TV things he did. It was a club so not the best light in there and he wasn’t there long but I’m pretty sure it was him….I’ts always funny to so someone you only know from TV in real life…but I’m always unsure if its really the person I think it is when standing in front of them.

He was dancing with this really small and petite girl (even for Japanese standards) and it just looked like a big black beast dancing around a little kid….this guy was huge compared to her…he could probably have picked her up single-handedly grabbing her by the waste like King Kong…

Well here are some videos so you know who I am talking about:

Long Sunday Part 2

So after we watched the people carrying their shrines around town we had something to eat. Because of the Festival there were a lot of stands with food and sweets around the temple in Asakusa. I wanted some meat and it really looked good so I thought lets try it…I AM SO GLAD the guy at the stand could speak a little English! He knew right away I probably didn’t want what he was selling…it looked like pork, smelled like pork and it was pork but unfortunately it was pork tongue and I am very happy he warned me. He was like: “Tongu…porku tongu desu..” while sticking his tongue out and pointing at it… ! I laughed and made clear to him I don’t want it and he then gave me something else….probably cow tongue lol.

After the Festival we decided to visit a maid cafe….I’ve never been to one and I just had to experience it once. These cafés are ridiculous. All the waitresses are dressed up as maids and are trying to make you, feel good and to be happy…they call you master whenever they talk to you, they sing for you, draw pictures on your food to make it look cute and they even feed you if you ask for it. After you’re done with eating singing and pretending to have a cute maid who does everything for you, you can take a picture with one of them. I took the youngest and cutest lol….she looked like 15 and I somewhat felt like a pervert! You have to put on animal ears and make a cute pose….now just look at the picture and you get an idea how crazy this place was….and yes I know I made a complete fool out of myself:

The cutest cake I have ever eaten:

Long Sunday Part 1

Last Sunday was really fun…I was tired as hell, but I new I would regret not getting up so I did when Hiro woke me up that morning. We met up with one of her friends in Asakusa to see the “Asakusa Sanja Matsuri” Festival. There where so many people on the streets it reminded me of the football world cup 2 years ago when all the people came out to celebrate in Stuttgart. But this was no sports event and that’s what I think is amazing, all these thousands of people coming together to celebrate…but in a cultural way! All the streets were closed for cars and you could walk around freely wherever you wanted.

The people carried several dozens of portable shrines on their shoulders. There were also portable shrines carried by women only, and by children only….smaller ones of course for the kiddies. There were Floats which carried musicians playing flutes and beating drums, people dressed as traditional artisans and dancers performing traditional dance from Yanagi-dori to Asakusa Shrine.

It was really fun to watch something like this and of course I took my cameras with so here is some footage. Oh and this is the first time I actually edited something so don’t expect a blockbuster!

And some pics of course:

Party@Culture!

Yeah I know…no posts this week, cuz I didn’t do much…but I made up for it this weekend and will post everything today and tomorrow.

Friday night was a blast….I went out with Hiroyo who lives in the same guesthouse and her friend Yukiko. Me and Hiro headed to Ometesando around 22:00h and met up with Yukiko there. After a beer and a little pizza we took off to a club named “Culture”. I forgot my passport and thought they might not let me in, but we had no problems and got in….that is after paying the 3000¥ (about 30$ or 22€) entrance fee. Not unsusual at all in Tokyo, but still alot of money to just get into a club for my German standards.

The club wasn’t that big, had 2 floors and one bar, but was a really nice place. When you entered the first floor there was a corner to your right were people drew pictures, did some grafitti and other “artsy” things. The music selection surprised me though (in a positive way), when we arrived they played some oldschool Hip Hop and Funk while there was a live show on the second floor. There where a couple of MCs both Japanese and from the US doing their thing. After they finished the show continued with at least 5 or 6 different dance groups. I didn’t expect to like it, but some of the people really knew what they were doing and it was alot of fun to watch them! They later played House and even some good drum ‘n’ base…WITH MC…although he wasn’t that good and my homie JörnyMC (was geht langer….) would have kicked his behind on the mic.

But the best part was all the people I met, a guy from Belgium who was pretty cool and I’ll be partying again with next week. Some people from Mexico, one of them is a designer at Nissan here in Japan and a girl…forgot her name…who was half Japanese half Austrian and I had a conversation with in German which was really fun cuz I don’t speak it here at all.

I got home pretty late that morning and was really happy to just fall a sleep in my bed.

Here are some pics…enjoy: