One Week

Got my plane ticket today. Leave Japan on May 9th at 10:30, arrive back in Seattle on May 9th at 10 pm.

The last two weeks have been very stressful, only half of which I've written about here. I wanted to stay longer to enjoy some time off in Japan, see some things. All year I wanted to go to Hiroshima and Tokyo. Looks like that just isn't in the cards though. With only a week left I'm going to be focused on enjoying Shiga and the company of friends I've made this year.

I can't say what continent I'll be on five months from now. That neither intimidates nor excites me like it once did. I suppose the apathy flowing through my veins right now is just a result of a season that, on the court, didn't go as well as hoped. Combine that with the whole surgery meltdown and it's easy to see how stressed I've been.

I'm excited to get back to the States. A few things I've missed:

• Being able to communicate
  
• Mexican food
• Mariners baseball
• Driving
• Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream
• Ugly children
  

Rememer that whole hospital thing?.....Yeaaaaaaaaah.....

So I spent the whole day with our team trainer at the hospital, getting xrays, ct scans, an EKG, blood tests, lung capacity tests, etc. Only to get a call tonight from the club saying that I can't have surgery because the insurance runs out after the season ends. So I'm shit out of luck.

This is after I first found out that I needed surgery last November. I talked to the team and decided to play through the season and have it after the season. Now the season is over and they're asking me for rent (after telling me the whole season I can stay May for free) and telling me I can't have surgery. Up to this point the LakeStars organization has been pretty good. I've certainly enjoyed my time here, and while there have been a few minor complaints, it was overall pretty good. But this last month the team has gotten super sheisty.

I don't know what to say. I guess I'll be coming home next week. Now I have more time off, not sure what I'll do. On the positive side I won't have to spend $600 for rent and $1000 for the surgery....

It's interesting, fans often get upset at professional players because of a perceived lack of loyalty when the player chooses to sign elsewhere for more money or elects to have surgery or not to play. I've been guilty of this myself many times; I still hold a grudge against Alex Rodriguez because he left the M's (to clarify: I don't blame him, I just hate him. Hey I didn't say it was rational). Now I promise never to make that mistake again. Professional athletics is a shady business, teams abuse players bodies and then dump them.

In my case, I had a conversation with the team where I said I would play out the season and then get surgery in the offseason. They said the insurance would cover it, they even said I could stay for free in May (to be fair, they said these two things at separate times). It sucks for me, I could have had the surgery done with now and been feeling better than the beat up feeling I have right now.

Sitting here in the moment, I'm upset cause I won't be getting surgery. I'm upset at my team for playing with me like this. Maybe it sounds sappy but I hope this doesn't sour my experience in Japan. I've loved living here, hopefully these last shitty memories don't skew my overall time here. Guess we'll see.


On the plus side...SEATTLE!

And then I found out I'd be in a Japanese hospital for two weeks

Last time I wrote I wrote about not knowing my immediate future and whether or not I would get surgery here in Japan. Well the past 12 hours have cleared that up. Within the past 12 hours I have discovered that I am now scheduled for surgery on May 1 (that's Friday...it's Tuesday night here), I have a rare disease that affects one out of a million people (Dysplasia Epiphysealis Hemimelica) and that I should expect to spend half of May in a Japanese hospital taking drugs from people with whom I have no means to communicate (other than charades).

Oh and if I don't want to pay any rent for May (you know, when I'm spending all my time in a Japanese hospital) I have to have all my stuff out and packed before I go to the hospital. Only problem is that I go to the hospital Thursday morning. Wednesday night I have a team banquet, and Wednesday during the day I hope to go to Kyoto to get some books for my medically-induced Japanese immersion tour. I also have to go the eye doctor and get some contacts.

So I went from having no responsibilities to suddenly having too much to do. Good thing I thought ahead and packed up a bunch of stuff on Monday! Oh wait. No I didn't do that.

So it's entirely possible this is my last post for a while. I may have time to write one more quick one. But be warned, the next post may be all in kanji. I hope I don't lose my English when I'm in the hospital!

Season over

Well it came down to the final weekend. We were two games back with two to play, traveling to Okinawa for a match-up with the best team in the league. Unfortunately we couldn't get it done, losing on Saturday by 5. It was a close game, a few shots didn't go in and we ended up on the wrong side of a 78-73 score.

Having had our season unceremoniously ended the day before, we came back on Sunday for our last game of the season. We were spent, having invested so much in the game we lost the day before. I guess the best thing you can say about Sunday's game is that nobody got hurt. We had a few scares but nothing serious. Oh, and Ray managed to pick up his only technical of the season with less than 2 minutes to play in the final game of the season. Sucks for him but funny timing for the rest of us.

Turns out the team ahead of us, Fukuoka, won on Sunday. So even if we had overcome the odds and defeated Okinawa twice we still wouldn't be in the playoffs. That's not much consolation, however.

Well now the season is done, I'm not quite sure what is going to happen. My parents are still here for a few days. We still are on the payroll cause we have a booster end-of-the-season party (name changed from the previous name: Playoff Send-Off Party) on Wednesday. After that we are finished with our obligations.

I'm not sure when I will be returning Stateside. I had planned on staying in Japan and getting knee surgery, but after saying I could stay for free in May my team is now asking me for rent money. I'm talking to them, we'll see what happens. My surgery is set for May 16, if I can get it moved up I will certainly stay and have it done. Insurance pays 70% here, and considering I don't have insurance in the States, that's not such a bad deal. If I can't move the surgery up and the team is still making me pay rent, I'm not sure what I will do.

At present I am unable to say with any certainty what continent I will be on 10 days from now. I suppose I can say with 100% certainty that I won't be on Antarctica. So there is that. But yeah, who knows where I will be. So now it's back to the weightroom to get ready for next season.

Some pictures...

These are borrowed from the blog link I posted earlier.

Game pictures...

So for those of you who want to see some game photos, my coach recently told me about a Japanese blog with a lot of photos of LakeStars games. I guess it's is all about the LakeStars. Anyway, here is the link.

For those of you who want the URL: http://topics.shiga-saku.net/

Some cool photos on there of the last couple games.

Sakura

Springtime in Japan is awesome. Really great weather. Japan has a very similar climate to DC, so the winters are bone-chillingly cold and in the summer you can go for a swim without jumping into the water. The sticky humidity here in Japan made for some interesting practices, especially when you add in the fact that there is no air conditioning in the gyms. But having extreme weather in the summer and winter brings some advantages. Spring and fall are absolutely gorgeous. Just today I made guacamole and sat out by the lake under the sakura in the 80 degree weather.

I had never heard of Sakura until I went to school in DC. Washington is pretty famous for it's cherry blossoms, drawing more than 700,000 visitors a year to the National Cherry Blossom Festival. Basically, I thought DC had some kickass cherry blossom trees.

Until I came to Japan.

The sakura here in Japan are phenomenal. They are ubiquitous, and their size range is much more variable than the DC trees. I have seen trees twice the size of the biggest trees I saw in DC. The sakura also are very special to the Japanese people, so there are a few traditions that go along with them. The most famous tradition is called hanami. It boils down to sitting under the sakura and drinking beer. The second part of the tradition is that the girls of the group prepare a picnic. My kind of tradition!

On our last off-day, Ryan (other tall white guy), Mike (red checkered shirt), Su (red track jacket) and myself traveled to the Kano river in Kyoto to...look at sakura and drink beer. Mike's girlfriend came along with some of her friends. So the girls made (great) homemade Japanese food and we hung out on the river all day. It turned out to be a pretty nice day if you like 75 degree weather without a cloud in the sky. Everyone, with the exception of Su, made the mistake of wearing jeans. It was a bitterly bitched about point all day.

The next night I went to this famous bhuddist temple in my city called Miidera. About 7 times older than the United States, Miidera is set on a big mountain overlooking Lake Biwako. It's about a ten minute bike ride from my apartment. I hadn't been there yet, but during Sakura season it's free. They also illuminate the Sakura, so it's a pretty sweet place.

Two wins over Toyama

Last weekend we played Toyama, a team from the Eastern Conference. We won both games and Fukuoka lost one, so we gained a game on them. We are now 1 game back with 10 to play. We have two games at home against Fukuoka at the end of the season.

Here are two short videos, courtesy of Sarah Schafer from our games last weekend.

The first is a nice dunk by me (Ok fine I traveled but they didn't call it so it doesn't count).

The second one is a nice high-low pass that ends up being an alley-oop...without the dunk. Good times.

Monkeys and Lanterns

We decided to take advantage of Monday being my only off-day of the week by using it to go to Arashiyama and the Monkey Park they have there. It's basically a mountain that is reserved for 150 or so monkeys. You walk up a path and you aren't separated from the monkeys at all. At the top you can go into a shack and feed the monkeys through a cage. It's pretty fun. The monkeys are crazy.

My favorite monkey was this fatass monkey that screamed at everyone. He screamed at the people giving him food, he screamed at the other monkeys. I think he just liked to hear his own voice. I told him he needed a diet, but I don't think he listened to me.

The monkeys are pretty cool, you can get pretty close to them. The only downside to the monkey park is that you have to walk up a mountain. So that wasn't pleasant. But overall a cool place.

Tuesday after practice all the Americans made it out to Kyoto to see Hana Touro in the Gion District. Hana Touro is a lantern festival, thousands of lanterns are set up all over the place. The Gion district is also the Geisha district. We did not see any Geisha's unfortunately. They are like leprechauns they are so difficult to find.

This is me with my favorite monkey!!

Beating Jackie Chan's nemesis

So this weekend we played Hamamatsu. They are #1 in the Eastern Conference and riding a 10 game winning streak. Hamamatsu have Sun Ming Ming, better known as that big dude who kicked Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker's asses in Rush Hour III.

We split the weekend, losing on Saturday and winning on Sunday. It was a great win for us, the fans were excited and it was on national TV. It was definitely exciting. My friend Austin's team played our main rival, Fukuoka, this weekend. They split as well so we are still 2 games out of the last playoff spot with 12 games to play. We still play Fukuoka two more times at home.

This weekend was good too cause Nicole and her mom came. They flew in Saturday afternoon so they were only able to make it to Sunday's game. But that's the one we won so I guess they didn't miss much.

Sarah caught some cool videos from our game on Saturday. Both are me dunking. The second dunk was late in the fourth quarter so it's not that great. I just wanted to make sure I scored haha. But the tip dunk is nice, right on one of their players. That dude was a major asshole too. Throwing elbows and holding. I was so happy I dunked on him.

Random pictures

So I thought I would just throw up some random pictures I've taken recently. Maybe you'll laugh, you probably won't cry, but at least you're guaranteed to want these 5 minutes of your life back!

This was taken on our trip to Korea. One night in the hotel somebody was bored and had nothing to do. Somehow somebody thought it would be a good idea to wear a robe and carry an umbrella and pretend to be a ninja. Somebody ran around our floor, busting into teammates room's and slicing them with somebody's umbrella. This was taken by one of somebody's teammates. Unfortunately somebody's reign of terror was ended by faulty umbrella engineering. Whoever designed them decided they didn't need to make them strong enough to be swung overhead like a katana. This is a most grievous oversight. NOTE: This picture edited to protect Somebody's identity.

I know this picture looks like it was taken in a hotel on Okinawa in January 2009, but it was really taken in San Diego in January 1989. That chair is normal size. Really.







Shinya, Bobby and I taking some time out of busy schedules to throw some shuriken's (ninja throwing stars).















This was the view from my hotel room in Fukuoka. Beautiful Pacific Ocean.















I like the English in these pictures. Cracks me up.

I mean, what does that Style paragraph even mean? I don't know!
















Sorry for the pictures being out of place and this post being ridiculously big and all that stuff. I have issues with the way pictures are uploaded onto this blog. Apparently the blog has issues with me too. It's way too difficult!

So I got some down time before today's game...

So I thought I'd catch up writing on this blog. I'm currently in Tokyo, we lost last night by 10. We play again tonight, and I'm so glad today wasn't a day game because it was, I may not have been able to play. Words wouldn't do justice to physicality of this league. My body has taken some shots this season.

Even though we lost, there were some silver linings. We got to play against a famous And1 player, named Helicopter. His real name is something Humphrey. I don't know his first name, I think maybe John but I'll just go with Something instead. What else....oh the coach for the Tokyo Apache is Joe Bryant, father of possibly the most famous Bryant ever to grace this Earth. Joe is really tall, I almost see eye-to-eye with him. For some reason I feel like this is something you need to know.

Als0 my friend Austin Yuen came down to watch our game. Austin is from Mercer Island, we grew up playing together. We graduated MIHS together in 2003 and yada yada yada. It was nice to see him, I'm a bit jealous as this weekend his team travels to Okinawa. While their results will probably not be too good, at least the weather will be.

Here is a picture of the Seattle guys hanging out in a McDonald's on a late Thursday night.


GOAL FREE LECTURE/DINNER/THING

What else has been going on....Oh our team had a big dinner thing with the main sponsor of our team. Our main sponsor is named Goal Free, which is a company that provides afterschool education. Like a second school I guess. Apparently the President of Goal Free is fed up with our free throw shooting ability (ha!) and wanted to give us a sermon about concentration or something. Now I'm not sure what the Japanese guys got out of this educational opportunity, but I know it would have worked betterf for me if it was A) in a language I could understand and/or B) wasn't a two hour lecture following a 3 hour practice with no opportunity to cram something into my stomach. Apparently I can't focus if I lift, watch film, practice and go to a 2 hour session on concentration given in Japanese by an old wrinkly guy who keeps yelling at me for no apparent reason. Who knew?

But I got to give the old dude some props, after the sermon we headed to a "Korean-style" BBQ for dinner. I say "Korean-style" because all the Japanese guys said it was Korean, but the one Korean person I know said it was nothing like Korean-style. But it was undeniably the best steak I have had in a couple years. That was damn good food.

Here are the Americans in our Backstreet pose.


NARA


A couple weeks ago I went to Nara. I tried to do a blog post, but the pictures weren't coming in right and I just got frustrated and said to hell with it.

Anyway, Nara is a pretty cool city. About an hour south of Kyoto. It was the Imperial capital for about 80 years or so. They have the largest wooden structure in the world, as well as the biggest statue of Buddha. But those aren't the coolest part about Nara. The coolest part about Nara is the fact that they have deer running around everywhere. When I say everywhere, I mean these deer are damn near omnipresent. You can even buy little deer biscuits to feed them. I purchased the biscuits, but I wouldn't do it again. After purchasing the biscuits I turned around to see a crowd of 12 deer surrounding me. Smart little effers. I took the biscuits out of the wrapping and tried to move away from the biscuit cart so the deer wouldn't be tempted to overrun it. The deer obviously weren't interested in me fleeing, so they tried to block me in. It felt like I was swimming up a river of deer. I started to feed one of the deer when I felt a nip on my thigh. I ignored it, assuming a deer had headbutted me or something. Then I felt another. And another. My first instict was to start bopping these deer on their heads, but since they are sort of a civic treasure and all I figured that would only end badly for me. In order to avoid extradition I chose to flee the deer, scattering the biscuits behind me as I ran. Fortunately the deer were distracted enough by the biscuits to allow for my timely escape. Pictures!

So we haven't posted in a while....

Sorry again. As a team we haven't been playing as well as we'd like, so the results have been....poor. There has been a considerable amount of tension surrounding the team the past couple weeks. Hopefully splitting the games last weekend against Fukuoka will mitigate some of that tension.

I have a really busy week this week, but I hope to get to some posts. I have some ideas, so there should be some good posts coming up.

Also, I should really just write posts about my dreams. After the "styles!" I had another funny dream. The following night I dreamt that we were on a road trip and staying at a hotel on top of a hill. There was snow everywhere. I went down to the bus to go to shootaround and found Ray and one of my teammates, Mike, down there. The bus was open but nobody was inside or around. Mike was pestering Ray, trying to get him to take the brake off the bus. Ray acquiesced and the bus started to roll down the hill, slamming into every car possible. I was chasing after the bus like I could do something to stop it.

After the bus came to a stop we ran back up the hill to find everyone waiting. I started professing my innocence (I actually was innocent too!) and telling our coach that "The front of the bus is messed up but our seats are ok so we can still sit in the bus." That's a direct quote from my dream.

Our Asst. GM saved the day though, saying it wasn't a problem because we had a second bus (not true).

Wild.

The Prophetic Dream

Hello and Welcome

When I was a little chap, I dreamed about going to the moon, meeting Optimus Prime from transformers or being the president of the United States of America. Well, as for my best friend Brayden that was not the case. He has dreams the are out of this world, from run away buses, to fights with rams and baby chickens. Although, nothing would prepare me for this last one. Lets enter the mind of Brayden "shinche" shall we..........

Brayden: Okay guy's I had this dream last night and Bobby you were in it.

Bobby: Oh God...

Brayden: So guy's check this out! So, me and Bobby we were in kyoto and we had just beaten Okinawa and we were going to this club "Sam and David".

Bobby: Oh God...What did I do now!

Brayden: Wait....hahaha....Clap....Loud Clap.......anyways so we were heading into the club and you call one of your friends and asked them if they wanted to come and hang out with us. So, you called them and they said "no we aren't friends anymore!"

Bobby: Oh Lord...

Braydne: Wait hold on....haha....Clap.....So you say back to them "okay, thats cool, STYLES!" and hung up the phone...(dumb and dumber laugh)....loud clap and more laughter.....

Ray: Wow...Styles.....

Bobby: Yeeeaahhh.....STYLES....

Ryan: "You want to talk to me about style! Look at that bowtie!"

Brayden: Another Clap for good measure and then silence.....

Bobby: Wow that was strange....

Sorry for the limited responces we have been really busy...Thank you to all five of our bloggers for your support. Please stay tuned for more hilarious antics of brayden and I, they are assured to be knee slappers.

A Better Weekend.

As Bobby wrote below, we played Osaka at home this weekend. Before this weekend we were 0-4 against Osaka, and only one game was close enough to win. They are a very physical team, which has presented some problems for us in the past.

This weekend we were able to match Osaka's physical presence, and were rewarded with much better outcomes than we had previously attained. Saturday we won, 84-78. It wouldn't have been that close if we could make a few free throws. We shot a combined 12-25 from the free throw line.

Sunday we ended up losing, I believe 82-69. But it was much closer than that. I missed an open three to tie the ball game with about eight minutes to go in the 4th quarter. Osaka hit their free throws at the end of the game.

But 1-1 against the defending champs isn't bad. Coming into the weekend we had been in 5th place, down one game to Fukuoka. But Fukuoka lost both games to Okinawa this weekend, so we moved back into a tie for 4th place. If we end the season on a tie, the tiebreaker is point differential over the entire season. As of right now we are leading Fukuoka in this category.

Oh and I got another technical this weekend. And it's another bullshit technical too. I was in dribbling in the post and got the ball knocked away. I dove for the ball, as did their Japanese point guard. In the ensuing collision the tiny Japanese guy bounced off me (physics 101, thanks Newton!). As we got up, one of their players thought it was appropriate to get in my face as if I just sucker-punched a cheerleader. On his way over to confront me he actually punched Ray in the face. Of course the refs didn't see this because they were looking at me and the little guy getting up. So he gets in my face, waving his finger in my face and yelling.

Since I don't want to get a technical (costs me 50 damn bucks each time!) I slowly back away, looking at the nearest ref the whole time. I keep my mouth shut, just trying to move away from the guy. Somehow the refs think I was escalating the situation and give me and the Osaka player a technical. Upon inquiring as to my offense, I received a blank stare.

Osaka were coming for you.......

the road road only gets tough for the Shiga Lake Stars. We had a disappointing weekend coming up short in two very good games. It is important for us to put that behind us and really think about what is coming up next. I especially didn't play well shooting a dismal 24% in the first game and 28% from behind the arc. We have worked to long and to hard to not be in the finals this year. I know that i can speak for Brayden on this we are going to bounce back work our butts off and get back to our winning ways. As Brayden is, I'm not accustom to loosing either. I have won two state championships, I have gone four years in high school and only loosing two games. In college we had four winning season out of my five years. I hate loosing just as much as Brayden and we are going to turn it around. Osaka were coming for you....... and you can count on that.

Opportunities Missed..........

Both games this weekend came down to the final possession, and each time we were on the wrong end of a close game.

The wounds from this weekend are still fresh, but I suspect that the sting from these missed opportunities will bite at us for the remainder of the season. Had we been able to capitalize and win at least one game we would have picked up a game over Fukuoka in the race for the final playoff spot.

This weekend hurts doubly bad because we are hosting Osaka next weekend. We are 0-4 against Osaka so far, and really only one of those games was close. They are the most difficult team we've played against.

I am not accustomed to losing. In high school my teams were very good, placing 2nd and 3rd in the State my two years on varsity. In college I suffered one losing season out of four. Not bad for a mid-major school known for its academics. Last season in Denmark we were very good, winning the National Cup and winning 80% of our games before losing to a clearly superior team in the Finals.

This has been a rough season for me, I am not accustomed to team failure like this. I often find myself laying in bed late into the night, unable to sleep. In my self-imposed solitary confinement the mental replays of my mistakes nick me like little cuts from a razor. Last night I slept about three hours. This was after I played well, scoring 15 points and grabbing 10 rebounds.

Tonight we lost by three. I was 1-6 on free throws, including 0-4 in the fourth quarter.

Weekend Preview - Games 27, 28

Opponent: Takamatsu Five Arrows
Location: Home
Opponent Record: 17-9
LakeStars record vs. Opponent: 1-3

Brief: This weekend is very important for us. We have a 1-game lead on 4th place over Fukuoka. Takamatsu is tied with Osaka for second place. Last weekend Takamatsu beat Fukuoka twice. Takamatsu has the leading rebounder in the league, Gordon James. James averages 20 ppg and nearly 15 rpg.

Takamatsu is known as being one of the most stable organizations in the BJ League, carrying two of the same Americans and many of the same Japanese players for the last three years. But recently Takamatsu has undergone some changes. Their center, a dominating force inside (and a good guy off the court) recently suffered a torn ACL. Really unfortunate for him. There are rumors Takamatsu has released one of their other Americans, a big guy who gave us a bit of trouble in the previous games. Takamatsu signed another Japanese player who is averaging 14 points (2 games played). He was playing minor league ball in the States. For a team known for their stability, it's kind of strange to not know who they are bringing this weekend. This will be a very competitive weekend, and both teams have a lot to play for.

Scratch

Hello to all
Now you as you look at the title you see Scratch. Now, what could that mean ? Do i have a nagging itch that needs to be scratched. Have I caught Ryan Rourke's skin rash causing me to freak out and want to scratch myself with sand paper. No No No... Scratch is a little creature on the movie Ice Age. Well, i talked to the people at Blue Sky Productions and Carlos Saladhna and they said we got the idea of the character Scratch from Shiga Lakes Stars power forward Brayden. They said he just fit the mold and the rest was history.













eeeyyahhhh....... Brayden your my boy and your an awesome writer

Halfway Done

Since this is a blog written by two pro basketball players I figured I that I should probably put up some sort of basketball update. At the moment we are precisely halfway finished with our season. We are 11-15 with 26 games remaining. Here is a breakdown of our conference standings. The top four teams make the playoffs.

Okinawa Golden Kings - 21-5
Osaka Evessa - 17-9
Takamatsu Five Arrows - 17-9
Shiga LakeStars - 11-15
Fukuoka Rizing - 10-16
Oita Heat Devils - 5-21

We have four games left with each team in our conference. We also have six games remaining against the Eastern Conference: two games at home versus Toyama and Hamamatsu and two games away at Tokyo.

As you can see we are locked in a tight battle with Fukuoka for the final playoff spot. So far this year we are 2-2 against them. Each team won both games on the road.

Individually both me and Bobby are having successful seasons. Bobby is second on the team in scoring, averaging 16.3 ppg and fourth in rebounding at 6.1 rpg. I am fourth on the team in scoring at 11 ppg but leading in rebounding at 8.5 rpg.

I also have taken a commanding team lead in technical fouls. I have four, while my nearest competition (Bobby, Ray) have one. I actually got a technical because the opposing team's coach (a Japanese coach) came onto the court and tried to fight me. He had to be carried back to his bench by his players. While he was doing his midget-Mike Tyson impersonation I simply stood out of bounds, staring at him. Somehow the refs (Japanese refs I may point out) concluded that, depsite the other team's coach running onto the floor and trying to punch my shins, I deserved the technical foul. Really the biggest reason I'm upset is the $50 fine from the league that comes with each technical foul.

R.I.P. John Updike

I don't want to get too much into John Updike's life because he was a very polarizing figure (the New York Times obituary noted that he was called a misogynist, racist and apologist for the establishment). But one thing is certain: John Updike was a literary giant. He wrote the the best piece of sports writing I have ever read, and I strongly urge you to read it. Even if you don't like sportswriting, give it a chance. It's that good.

You can find the story in it's entirety here.

That's it. I'm declaring culture war.

Not really. But I do have a few things to complain about. Before I get into this, I want to say that I really like Japan. I like the people, I like the food. I like living here. I really do. But there are a few culture differences that drive me insane. Well, really I have two pet peeves.

My first pet peeve is old Japanese men staring at me. I'm used to be stared at. It's happened everywhere I go. People, no matter their culture, always say the same thing. I know you think I can't understand you when you whisper just after passing by me. But I know. It's difficult for me not to realize it. And if you whisper and laugh, well, I'm not an idiot. I may be large and I may be foreign but I can damn sure do a Rubik's cube faster than you, and that must count for something. Haha. I digress.

Old Japanese men love to stare at me. Some stare in wonder, some stare because I'm so unusual, and some stare at me like I abducted their youngest grandchild and used them as a dart board. And I'm getting sick of it. I do have a theory about this. I believe that the old guys have no shame about staring because respecting your elders is such an important part of the culture here. It gives them a little more leeway on things. Which is fine.

But staring at a person like they aren't wearing any clothes is not ok. It's dehumanizing. And I'm sick of it. With this in mind, I've declared a staring war on all old Japanese men that stare at me. This means I am going to have a staring contest with them. Few blinks, no facial expressions. And I won't stop until it's necessary or they've given up. I know I'm living in their country and I should try and assimilate and all that jazz, but once you get stared at like a three-armed monkey at a zoo for six months, well it gets kind of annoying. So from here on out, it's on old Japanese guys!!

My second pet peeve is related to my bicycling adventures. Japan usually has nice wide sidewalks, and they're usually lined with ridges in the middle for blind people to navigate with. Which is great. My problem comes with the way Japanese people walk. I'm not sure if they all have something wrong with their inner ear or they have no proprioception, but Japanese people can't walk in a straight line. They'd be sober and fail a DUI test, and not because they were nervous. It's unbelievable.

What makes this worse is that the Japanese people subconsciously realize that they can't maintain a steady path. So they walk in the middle of the sidewalk. This would be ok if they walked straight, because there is enough room for someone to pass (on a bike) on either side of them. But what makes it so tricky is that it is impossible to tell where they are going to weave next! It's like they have no idea that people are anywhere around them. I frequently find myself riding my bike somewhere and weaving through people. I haven't hit anyone full on, but I've definitely brushed past people. Which is dangerous for them and for me.

I would like to reiterate that I sometimes get carried away in hyperbole, so these things may be a bit over-dramatized. But they certainly are frustrating.

Strange things in Japan Part II

As you may recall in our last episode of Strange things in Japan I talked about small dogs in diapers. In this version we'll stick with the small but change mammals.

Young Japanese children are mad cute. While calling anyone or anything cute goes against all tenants of being a a macho professional athlete (Yeah I said macho, wanna fight about it?), I have no reservations about calling Japanese kids cute. Much cuter than American kids.*

Of course Japanese children get a head start on American children in cuteness due to their relatively small size. Their small stature is highlighted by their cute little eyes.

So Japanese children do have the genetic advantage. You are probably (well...probably not) saying to yourself, "Yeah well American kids have the cultural advantage!" This too is untrue. Due to the typical American diet (McDonalds, fried foods etc) American children are much more likely to be little fatties. This does not enhance their cuteness. I will not argue this, just because some little kid has 6 elbows doesn't mean he's cute. It means he's at risk for heart failure. Put your kid on a treadmill, seriously (not really. But maybe less McDonalds).

The second part of the cultural advantage comes in behavior. American and Japanese behavior are inherently antithetical, at every stage in human life. Where Americans are taught individualism and to work hard for themselves, Japanese are taught to respect their elders and subjugate their personal desires for the sake of their family/team/group. Americans are taught from a young age to show confidence because confidence is important to self-reliance. Japanese who display confidence are looked down upon as being cocky and out-of-line. (Edit: I don't mean to say Japanese don't have confidence, just that they don't openly display it like Americans.)

While neither way of teaching is superior, one thing is certain. At the young stages of behavioral development Japanese children are much more affable. They are very respectful and not loud. American children are quite the opposite; Obnoxious and always on the prowl for some cockroaches to eat.**

The third and final arena where Japanese children dominate American children is fashion. They look so cute in their ridiculous little outfits. If I saw a small Japanese child in a ninja, sumo or samurai costume I think I'd lose it. I haven't been so fortunate yet, but I remain hopeful. Even without these costumes Japanese children play the Luis Vuitton to American children's Wal-Mart.



*I'm dealing in huge generalities here. Of course there are cute American kids, and uncute (what's the word for this...insubordinate, beastly, aggravating??) Japanese kids. My argument can best be summed up as the average Japanese child (years 0-4) is cuter than the average American child.

**I don't mean to suggest that every American child eats cockroaches. But one of my parents two children did, so using my family as evidence, approximately 50% of American children snack on cockroaches.


For the few of you who remain unconvinced by my words, I offer a photo-essay:










I win.

ninja's any one

So, what to do in Japan you might ask?
Well, me, Brayden and our tour guide Shinya Ogawa had the bright idea of going to a old ninja house. I mean who has not watched a ninja movie or dreamed of actually being in a ninja movie. So we had a day off on Monday and decided to check it out among other things. It was an awesome experience and one that I along with Brayden will never forget. The place was absolutely amazing and the best part was we got to throw ninja stars. So, i felt like a real ninja for a day and it was the greatest.

I apologize

Sorry for not coming on here regularly, it has just been tough between games, practice and days off to come on here and write a cool blog. But I'm coming back with a flurry of great post.

All Apologies...

Sorry I haven't been updating recently. There was a lull in between games which makes it pretty boring over here. And we've been losing a lot lately, including two crushing defeats at home this weekend. When we're losing like this it makes me physically sick, I feel restless and a sense of emptiness. Nothing crushes your whole week like losing both games over the weekend.

Our two losses last week came to the team who is right behind us in the fight for the last playoff spot. They were behind us by two games. And we were at home. We lost the first game by two, and the next game we lost in overtime by four. The kind of losses that feel like a quick punch to the gut.

Our next games are away, at Okinawa. Which is going to be nice because of the weather (think Hawaii). But it's probably not the best thing for us right now because we are struggling. Okinawa is, hands down, the best team in the league. So we'll see how this weekend goes. We need to win, if only for the sake my mental and physical health.

New Year's and Osaka Castle.

Happy New Year everyone. Ok now that that is over...


Osaka castle rocks. Really sweet. Osaka itself rocks. For anyone on the fence about visiting Japan, just know that Osaka is considered the food capitol of Japan and Kyoto is considered the clothing capitol of Japan. And they're 40 minutes (Osaka) and 10 minutes (Kyoto) from me. So yeah, my location is killer.


Osaka Castle took fifteen years to build, reaching completion in 1598. Interestingly enough, the guy (Toyotomi Hideyoshi) who had it built died the same year it was completed. His son didn't seem to have the leadership abilities of his father. He pissed somebody off and 17 years later the castle was overrun and the Hideyoshi clan was no more. Lightning struck the tower twice in a span of five years, exploding gun powder on one occasion and burning down the main tower on another. America did it's part in 1945, damaging the castle yet again. It was restored in the late 90s.

I was going to write more, but MTV Japan is showing 100 Best Songs of the 90s. So yeah....I'm gonna have to check that out.