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!