Billy Blog

Last of the Pan

2008-08-27T14:46:00.006+09:00

What's that? More Captain you say?

Well here it is, my last post of Japan. Drink it in.

Ok that's enough. Greedy.

I can't really think of what to say to sum up Japan so err my suggestion is toread the previous posts then mail me a summary, which I can put here and claim I wrote it. Everyone wins. Except you. But yeah its awesome, you should visit sometime.

A few final actives have involved buying various trendy idiot garments, eating lots and going to a manga exhibition. The show is basically for fans who write their own manga's based on original characters or stories. This was a whole other level to the geekdom compared to the toy festival and
it was huge.

After getting there we ended up being sucked into an endless cycle of people walking around the exhibition hall with seemingly no purpose (in life). This continued for a good hour or so when we spied some/hundreds of cosplayers and duly tried to take pictures only to be told off - not sure why, surely that's the point? But anyway after this setback we tried to find out where the cosplay show was being held only to be directed back around the conveyor belt of people, which was about the time we sacked it off and went home disappointed, with only one suitcase full of gay toddler manga.

Managed to get a long distance photy of the cosplayer queue festival. I love Ronald McD and the guy in the robot suit, brilliant.

Till next time when I'll be knee deep in Aussies.

Again.

Cotton buds but branded with Takoyaki (octopus balls) on them because this is the food Osaka is famous for so why not turn those boring old cotton buds into a funky souvenir for your loved ones? I brought 4 boxes.

Neckface graf I spotted. With my face, mostly my eyes.

The Captain

2008-08-11T22:26:00.006+09:00

...after regaling a someone with a description of 'The Captain' - one of the strangest, most repulsive, yet strangely intriguing characters I ever had the fortune to meet/touch/laugh at (point of note - he had the clammiest hands I ever did shake, ergh) whist on holiday with the lads in stock/spockholm I had the urge to draw him once again. So that's exactly what I spent Monday doing. Might change the background a bit but you get the idea...actually this is a far more surly and brooding Captain than the man we came across, think its cause I just saw Dark Knight (banger! Oh Heathy! Why Heathy? I loved you Heathy...) and had to reinvent him all gritty like.

A couple of sumo based things to look at with your eyes.

2008-08-08T14:34:00.009+09:00

So, in light of my recent trip to backpacker island (Laos) I decided to knock up some comics about the 'highs' (eh? It's gonna be a hit already) and lows of backpacking. I hadn't counted on my own ineptitude at doing anything remotely complex or for that matter my
ineptitude at doing anything remotely simple such as writing legibly. All of which meant the process took ages but here it is in all its half-baked glory. New issue should be out in 2012

Ok, been to Laos to visit biglad Ben. Great, cheap food and nice relaxing atmosphere in Vientiane, the capital but not much by way of sights to see, which works out perfect if your lazy like me (in case anyone had forgotten). We hung out there for a few days, I met Ben's newest s

election of aussie mates, ate the local specialties (deep fried snail, duck chin. Do ducks even have chins?), got a back massage by an old man while peeing in the urinals of a restaurant - the done thing apparently, pure service. The next step is clearly a shoe shine whilst you shit.

After this we headed north and joined the well trodden backpacker trail, did a bit of hiking (Reebok definitely didn't have rainy season hiking in mind when they made pumps), some kayaking and caving all interspliced with various 'gapper' encounters along the way. The only disappointment was the absence of tubing due to bad weather. Somehow Laos is making its fame with travelers due to the activity of getting battered in a rubber ring and floating down a river, so much so that people talk about it as the reason to visit Lao (italics, bet you never thought you'd see them crop up round here). Naturally being one of these people this was a massive blow for me and ruined the holiday.

Bennan and me showing off our dubious kayaking skills and giving props to the infamous SM BIP (see bennan blog)....

Back in Japan and I've been knocking around Kansai for the last week, hitting up Kyoto and Osaka and getting my sightseeing on and had my first capsule hotel experience, verdict is their awesome but you have to pay for the porn which is an obvious disappointment.

It may not be used pants but ties in a vending machine, brilliant. Who needs a tie that urgently?

Welcome to cat hell

2008-07-04T00:42:00.009+09:00

Well that's not what I thought at first. Nekobukuro - Cat's House runs on the basic concept that every once in a while a person just wants to hang out in a room full of kittens, playing, petting and frolicking with them to your hearts content. Upon discovery that a petting zoo for cats existed and that it not only existed but existed near me was, well like someone telling you there's a room full of cats down the road.

Happy as beans we set off but when we got there it turned out to be one of life's great dissapointments, like discovering backhair for the first time. Far from being bursting at the seems with kittens there was 7 or 8 cats lolling about doing their best to avoid being petted by the streams of people that inexplicably turn up. I suppose its too much of a good thing, sure every cat likes a damn good pat every now and then but clearly not all day, every day.

David trying to coax a fresh victim in a for some hot petting action.

So after chasing cats around for 20 minutes and then petting them when they relucantly concide there isn't any escape, we left before the cats depression could dampen our spirts further. The day wasn't a complete loss as we hit up this ramen shop famous for inventing the style of having noodles and soup separate and then dipping the noodles into the soup. Its owned by this awesome old guy who hangs outside on the stoop yarning with the sizable queue of customers waiting. He was going to retire and close the place down a few years ago but a loyal customer stepped up to become his protégé and take over the kitchen.

Other activities this week involved eating a burger off the floor and a trip to Nikko, to visit some temples and remind myself what nature looks like. However, being an urban trendy an all I don't really need to know. What's a tree anyway? Pretty much just a shit lamppost...

This guy in red is such a fucking pimp

Decided to mess with some of the smoking posters from my last post. Also whilst I was on the topic knocked up a smoking valentines card and there's also some other rubbish here too.

Smokers Style

2008-06-20T20:38:00.013+09:00

I'm a big fan of these smoking manners posters that appear on trains. They are designed to give Jonny Smoker a nudge to mind his manners and not cram fags down the mouth of the next small child he sees. After much research (writing down the website address on the poster) I came across the archive of posters which is here;

If clicking your mouse proves too much of an effort here are some of the choice picks, think I might get the 'passing wind' tattooed on my back. Seeing as I'm on the topic here are a couple of great no-smoking signs too.....

Assorted video treats

2008-06-11T20:18:00.004+09:00

I own a robot

2008-06-11T19:48:00.006+09:00

That's it really. I went to a toy show, saw some nerds (damn nerds, hate them so much. Almost as much as I hate grebos) and became the proud owner of a snazzy robot toy. Inter-changeable hands, 4 different helmets and 2 jetpacks is there anything it can't do? No, well except love.

Bow down before his plastic glory.

Started my job teaching people how to speak English super good, already pretty sure I've spelt some words wrong in lessons but fuck it who's going to find out eh?

Tune in next time when I'll probably have been fired.

A 'toy' that should have probably been purchased but cost way more than 20 mighty robots. How and why this exists is a mystery but it does. Possibly part of a war criminals action figure range given away with happy meals.

Work in progress, needs more arse hair I think.

2008-05-22T19:57:00.000+09:00

Bonjour mon frére's, blogness coming at you straight outta my brand new computy box. Yeah that's right, I own a computer now, deal with that AND its an overpriced mac. Bosh! Back of the net, more than Terry could manage EH EH? Topical footy jokes, nothing can stop me now.

Well now we've got the formalities out the way, I'll let you know what's going on in my slice of life. I'm all set up in now Tokyo after all sorts bloody mental adventures of epic (mild) proportions, that might make for a mildly amusing anecdote. Not a good one, probably about the quality you'd tell your hairdresser to avoid the awkward silences or maybe if you were in a taxi stuck in traffic and felt the urge to talk to the driver or you really didn't like someone and wanted them to stop talking to you. Y'know, those kind of anecdotes, shit ones.

So managed to lock myself out of my room today. Twice. Not only was I provided with 3 key cards to start with in an effort to stop this event occurring, I was also issued 3 new key cards on my first lock out and decided to celebrate this by locking myself out again. I'm now the proud owner of 7 key cards, if I lock myself out again I think I'll give up living and take up being a corpse full time but make sure its an OPEN COFFIN!! ay? hahahahahahaaaaarrgggh, god I just threw up. Anyshrew I can't really be arsed I regale you with a play by play account of what I've been up to since the last post cause that was a while ago and you probably can't be arsed to read it anyway. Instead I've devised a rudimentary summary system called 'bullet-points', which I fashioned out of some twine and an old boot.

- Went on a ferry for 2 and a half days, ate lots of cup noodles. Felt ill when I got off.

- Saw a dolphin in a hat, spinning 720's and all kinds of shit I didn't realise they could do. Dolphins mouths weird me out.
- Had a BBQ by a river in Gifu, scenery coming out of the clappers, wherever they are.

- Got shouted at on a bus for being on the phone, twice.

- Brought a laptop, got patronised by the staff but had the last laugh cause I thought he was a wanker. Take that 'Tony' from the apple store.

- Went to Kamkura to see a giant Buddha, saw the said deity then went to beach. For some reason there are hundreds of hawks at this beach, circling menacingly for any opening to snatch up an unsuspecting sausage dog wearing skinny jeans and a pashmina.

-Went to an amusement park by Mt Fuji, awesome roller coasters but missed the Horror Hospital ride cause it closed, tis a shame cause its supposed to be messy pants scary. Got a bus there, didn't get shouted at.

-Went to sumo. Pretty cool if you like looking at fat men's arses, turns out I do.

-Every week we steal a massive bag of thrown out donuts from Krispy Kreme. I've probably eaten about 40 in the last 2 weeks, help me.

Check that for some low-fat bloggery. The other news is that I now have a job in Tokyo, so I'm not just mooching about with no purpose (although it doesn't start for another week so yes, actually that's exactly what I'm doing). Nothing for it now but to swing down to everyones favorite ridiculously trendy district 'cat street' (I didn't just make that up, apparently it is called that but actually I may have just made it up, can't remember. Stop bothering me.) and buy some overprices garments originally meant for toddlers and/or the Tour de France. Never thought I'd see the day when I could walk around cat street without staring at people that look like Barbie dressed as Pikachu made of sweets molded into the shape of a small girl. The guys are basically the same but with pointy shoes several meters long. I fear the same apathy is going to set in with stupid dogs wearing hot pants and the like. If that happens I'll know its time to leave because I'll have become everything I've ever hated.

Also, in an effort to come to terms with the prospect of never seeing beloved Darrel again and I'm toying with the idea of making some Darrel based comic strip which may or may not appear depending on if I stop watching internet porn for more than 5 minutes. Most likely it'll be an epic 9 volume space-opera chronicling the Darrel's from every universe uniting to stop the Fat Ross' from every universe taking over the cosmos and marrying the most beautiful being in existence Mr.Wak.

That or like 3 panels with his pants falling down or some shit.

Big Buddha plus old Japanese guy. Man I love the old man styles out here, makes me wish I was 60, Japanese and had the panache to pull off a look like that. Alas one can only dream...

Some drawings of stuff and things.

Goodbye snow, hello backpain, hermit crabs and hermit crabs with backpain.

2008-04-16T13:43:00.000+09:00

Was gonna get my blog on massive stylee but instead decided to flap around trying to sort out places to live and potential jobs. Predictably I achieved nothing in either field.

Anyho the haps is that we've ditched the snow and aussies and headed daawn saaath to the Okinawa island chain to catch some awesome rays. Full update will come soon but mostly we've been, complaining about back pain from camping, talking in a Mura voice, creating elaborate hermit crab olympics and err well that's it....OR IS IT????

Yes, yes it is.

..Oh wait no its not, found this under the sofa, next to the crab in jodhpurs.

Well the snow kind of petered out in good old Niseko. From the non stop powder days of Jan and Feb, March brought barely any new snow and so apathy started to set in, especially cause the parks weren't that interesting or well looked after. So after much hassle with trying to ship snowboard bags back to the UK {you can't buy the way, unless your willing to pay the price of a flight for shipping. You may as well buy a one way ticket for Mr Bagley of Baggington and dress you bag in a shirt and tie and stick him on the plane. At least he gets a meal and a movie that way but make sure you get the extra legroom seats cause he isn't that flexible, being a bag and all.} we set off on our merry way to Okinawa off to the southwest of Japan, which promised tropical climates and sandy beaches. We arrived in Naha, Okinawa's capital city and the only available beach has a massive flyover in front of it. The city was quite cool but we didn't stay too long there and soon invested in a ferry 400km south to Ishigaki which is a bit less hectic. However, not before I swooped up a saucy hairkatto for the tropical island look, dropping into my local 24hr salon I was treating to various ice coffees and massages from a crack team of hair management specialists, while the J-Cut the shit out of my hair. Unfortunately no photo evidence but there were points, flicks and swoops as far as the eye could see, I've never been so aerodynamic. The other bonus of being down here is that due to American influence, A&W root beer is in fruitful supply down here. Ben and I have been suppin' our little hearts out drinking 4 root beers in a row, then having and root beer comedown for the rest of the day.

The ferry down south and ended up with us getting smashed. Ben and Nick (another Nick, not me. Although I could start writing in the 3rd person...hmm he thought, thoughtfully), thoroughly sun burnt from a day beating small children at football on flyover beach ended up shirtless. We decided to raid the ferries booze supply and ended up with Ben climbing a tower thing in the middle of the ferry, falling off and smashing his shoulder. Cultural ambassadors.

When we got to Ishigaki, we've mostly been camping on the beach involving some terrible nights of sleeping and crippling backpain, followed by days of hosting crab olympics which, involves putting hermit crabs through rigorous Kypton Factor style competitions but it usually falls apart at the arithmetic part. In fact, there's supposed to be these massive land crabs which look several nightmares rolled into a shifty sideways beast, unfortunately no sightings as yet (I suspect the only people to see them are probably dead). Did see a post to stop littering showing some of the biglad crabs using buckets as houses, brilliant not sure why that makes you stop littering...

When backpain becomes critical, we've broken up camping with some nights in hostels. The first being run by a nice but intrusive old couple who insisted we call them Granny and Grandpa, Granny was pretty full on and definitely made a pass at Ben on at least one occasion. So after being scared off by Granny we stayed in a rowdier hostel downtown and have been hanging with the biglads there. Its coming to the end of our time here and everyone going/gone their separate ways, Ben is off to Taiwan and the Philippines, Brooke is going back to Naha, Nick (not me) has already left for Spain and Nick (me) still doesn't really have a plan. Prob going to Nagoya to stay with a friend for a bit, then debating whether to get a job here or come back to the Engerland for summer. Best get cracking with those plans, instead of spending hours writing about crabs and how I've got no plans.....ahem.

And I'm away, like a bee in a wetsuit....

ciao (air kiss, air kiss, headbutt)

Fat Ross and Darrel adopt Mr Wak and change his name to Trevor Kettle

2008-03-13T15:13:00.000+09:00

Is one of the things Ben and I spend an excessive amount of time talking about, who would be mum? Who would change Wak's nappies? All important questions. The other great pass time we have developed is singing songs based on NOASC to the tune of the Human League 'Don't you want me', let me now demonstrate our musical talent and low grade wit (possible T'N'R remix? If not Bennan [aka Captain Variety] and I will form a remix collective know as The Telemark Lunges)

{Chorus} 'Don't you work for NOASC?
Noooo I work for a proper company.'

I was working in Splash cocktail ba-ar, when Fat Ross said to me,
I'll give shit jobs and pay less than any other company, etc, etc - errmm. Improvisation. Funny sometimes complete rubbish in my case.

Woah, its been a slow month on the blog front but don't worry, I think I've racked up enough blog biscuits to squeeze out the usual smorgasbord of rubbish for you to ignore.

So there's been a bit of an exodus from here recently, a lot of fork have been taking off after the end of feb. Mainly cause Kat and Georgie left I think. By far the biggest lose is Billy Blog superstar Darrel who's up and left me with no new antics to write about by going home to Wagga Wagga (yes it is a real place) the selfish git. All we do now is remember the good times with D-unit and pretty much spend 90% of our time reminiscing about his zany antics. Lucky for Jamie and Hutch (who came out a couple o weeks ago) got to see the big guy off for his leaving do and although Darrel himself wasn't in glorious form the night included some reckless handling of toddlers, who after being towed behind a car on sleds then got taken along on a pub crawl as a sort of mascot.

My ankle was still a bit on the dodgy side of Jamie and Hutch's visit (henceforth Othello and the Ambassador - not a bad band name) but we got some good shreddin' down, including a sassy rail jam session round a friends house complete with low quality BBQ in the snow and also a second Rutsutsu trip which was off various racks, chains and hooks. It was damn good having some MSOS bluds holdin tings down in Japan and we'll be grateful for any 'birthday cards' for Wen Barren of Cick Nowan that accidentally find their way to the Mt Merry.

n.b. Yes Jamie and Hutch ate almost exclusively fast food daaannng suun.

Hutch's big quote of his visit - 'I'd be such a sex pest if I lived here'

March (MaRRRRRRch if you're a pirate) hasn't brought any new snow and the conditions are pretty mild (like a block of Tesco value cheese) so basically park riding and hikes are the men of the moment, we had a couple of trips out and about too, one to a backcounty mountain called Chitose (possibly), which has hot springs by the run out and an onsen where you cook and egg in it with you, the future is cooking your food with you.

Another hike Ben, Reuben and I did was up a mountain called Iwan'anpuri (maybe). It was a total 'bluebird' of a day and awesome fun, until we decided to get really smart and build a kicker off a cornice in the backcountry, which promptly avalanched after Ben hit it once. Anyone for a Backcountry guide? NOASC tours at your service. It sketched us out a fair bit but we still had a pretty awesome slice of day.

Apart from that we also started working for our 3rd company this season to help out a friend, which led to me having to teach two toddlers how to ski even though I haven't skied in about 10 years, so there wasn't much teaching really and ended up me throwing snowballs at them and encouraging them to fuck around. So that's life here, the end of the season isn't far off now so am having to start making plans for what the cock I'm going to do in April and beyond. Any ideas? Full time blogger, following Darrel about the place? Most likely.

Ben before and after avalanche, mainly our own fault as we opted to build a kicker off a cornice in spring conditions, possibly one of the worst ideas this year....

Some shreddin' and a saftey rave

Big air? Oh big time

2008-02-21T14:13:00.000+09:00

Afternoon all, how are we?

Glad to here it. Me you ask?

Well ok then. I've been injured for the last 2 weeks, twisted my ankle being a super gnarly bromachine(didn't fall over, promise). So since we last spoke I've taken to a strict recovery regime of sleeping, smoking, eating and generally being incredibly bored. Now you may wonder why I haven't been to say hi amid this stint of nothingness but doing nothing doesn't make for laugh a second blogging like my usual funderful entries...ahem.

Last weekend we went back down to Sapporo (sans Ben, who was still away in love hotels and the like) for the Toyota big air comp and the snow festival. The big air was fucking cold but also pretty cool (ay? wordplay, brilliant) and ever so Japanese. Every time the riders went for a trick there was hundreds of laser and space noises and lights that probably sounded futuristic in the 1920s and every pro was given a sassy nickname which they constantly referred to them as. Anti Autti (Shooting Star) won and walked away with the first place prize of a brand new Toyota Peanut, the lucky devil. He beating fellow Finnish rider Risto Mattila (Air Cyborg) who got disqualified for being a cyborg made out of air.

When the comp finished, we regrouped and defrosted before heading to the techno mashup extravaganza known as the afterparty. The pros were busily getting mobbed by more Japanese pro-hoe arse than you can shake a glowstick at (I also got my picture taken and shook hands with some pro-hoe's who either mistook me for a pro or were insane). I decided to go and chat to one of my favourite snowboarders, Nicholas Muller and the conversation went like this;

"................................................................................."

Now I appreciate that it must be pretty annoying getting chumps like my bothering you all the time but two of my buddies also went to chat to him and we concluded that he's the world's most boring man. Still I would've put it down to my buddies also being annoying chumps if it weren't for the fact that all the other riders were really sound. Kevin Piece (American Dream) and Mason Aguirre (Spin Magic) turned out to be all round rowdy party machines, so Muller's got no excuse. The Burton team are also up in Niseko at the moment and Muller turned up in Splash the other day and I thought I'd give it another shot but no dice, he's still boring. Oh well, guess that'll teach me talking to someone I admire....

Kaz with 'American Dream'. Tried to get a picture of Muller but it came out as a blank space.

After their explosion onto the blog scene last entry, Kat and Georgie have been called back to the land of Oz, Much to our disappointment. Alas the days of being woken up at 5 in the morning by them bursting in, chomping on fried chicken and demanding we come out drinking are a thing of the past, will miss you girlie's.

In other news, Mount Merry is currently knee deep in pirate joke fever with shit pirate jokes been thrown around with reckless abandonment (where does a pirate keep his lose change? In a jaaaarrrrs; what's a pirates favourite disease? saaaarrrrrs; you get the idea).

Yo got wasted in Splash and tried to smash up the place, after which he spat in the face of a girl and told a load of aussies to fuck off back home - think someone must've told him poi's are shit. On the plus side Georgie snogged him (yesss, back of the net).

Darrel, as if trying to make up for lost time now we're not living with his has come up with a prime blog goodness. First off, he keeps trying to download films onto his computer for free by searching 'free movies' in google and ignoring Ben's advice to use bittorrent. Instead he's come up with the solution of filming the TV overnight and then transferring that onto his laptop in the hope that sometime that night they may have shown a film in English. His other moment of the week was when we were shoveling snow together when he suddenly piped up with;

"It's like we're the negro's isn't it?"

..I stare at him blankly

"y'know like we're the slaves shovelling snow?"

me - "I don't think many slaves shovelled snow Darrel"

D - "nah I mean its like they (Japanese guys at our company) are the slave drivers forcing us to do the all the work, isn't it?"

Wow. Gave up and walked off at that point, wondering how such a man existed. Still the blog would be a hell of a lot shit(ter) without him.

What's a pirates favourite food?

....Pastaaaaarrrr

no? ok, never mind. Right I'm off, I'll leave you with some Snow festival pictures shamelessly poached from other peep's photos cause I was too hungover to look round properly. Who needs sightseeing when you've got beers ay? who's with me? no? fine.

Oh also reading material is fairly sparse if you can't read Japanese, so if anyone feels to urge to be charitable to Ben and I, some magazines would go down a treat. Daily Sport, Nuts, Zoo, Fast Car, Max Power, Total Carp, Slipper Weekly, Poultry World you know all the greats.

bye.

Man wanking off a fish

"Shit daaang dude!!"

2008-02-05T14:51:00.000+09:00

.....exclaimed Brooke whilst on a jaunt to Sapporo and has now become a regular expression in my daily life be it in anger, joy or props for badass tricks, shit dang dude is there for every occasion. Washed down with a cool glass of Maison de Chocolate.

Right ok sorry I'm here now, that bit was just a warm up; haven't sat down in a while now so just getting my blog legs again. Sooooooo what’s been going on eh? Well let me tell you, first off we've moved out of the Warebase and now live in a lodge in town called Mount Merry (there's a joke in there somewhere but I'll be damned if I know where). MM is pretty sweet, right in town so we can be bloody blokes and beer it up any time we like and also has some cool people living there - its almost like doing an actual season instead of being weird hermits who bath together, although I do miss the cot we made in the Warebase. It was a bit of a baptism of fire as we moved into MM a couple of days before Australia Day (biggest day of the century) and there are about 17 aussies living there but we dealt with it like a couple of biglads.

*****Fat Ross update - There's a famous hit (when there is enough snow, which there isn't at the moment apparently??) here underneath one of the chairlifts that is a gap between 2 cat-tracks which are about 60ft apart. 2 years ago fat Ross allegedly switch 540'ed it. Inexplicable******

The down side is far less Darrel contact and I can only see the blog suffering for this. Life is a bit too harmonious right now, no racist army wally's chatting shit at us all day. Its quite amusing cause Darrel obviously misses the talking constantly at us so whenever I do see him, he bounds up and vomits crap anecdotes all over me, the mess is disgusting. The only other person Darrel has to converse with at Warebase is a part time Japanese guy called Wak-san who stays there sometimes. He has very limited english and pretty much always looks totally stoned, when you walk in a room its almost guaranteed that if Wak is there he'll be eating, pause and stare at you like a rabbit in headlights whilst trying to finish his snack and then will eventually muster an 'oh..........................................hi'. We reckon that he's not Japanese at all but really called Steven and comes from Southend but has lost all his communication skills due to being baked all the time.

Had another staff party as well which saw dragging Darrel et all to the only club in town (a Nepalese restaurant that every Friday gets turned into a techno club, as you'd expect) Darrel even threw shapes on the floor! Yo-san (barry big bro) honoured Ben and me by complimenting our shredding skills then threw all his credibility away by revealing that he Poi's (god damn poi's, mankind’s greatest mistake) but this seemed to appeal to the girls who have a bit of a crush on the poi based bromachine (Brooke: "I'd pump him" - classic Brooke).

Speaking of which, it’s come to my attention that I've referred to 'the girls' a few times and never really given them their proper blog introduction. The said girls are Brooke, Kat and Georgie and are the lovely staff of everyone’s favourite chipboard themed bar, Splash (and are all legally the property DJ Shu-san). Not only do the girls have to deal with drunk wankers and listen to some of the finest reggae this side of Plymouth but they also sort old muggins here a with a host of drinks (ranging from the great - Mansions, to the not so great - Mansions made with 90% Pernod). Plus it makes me look cool when I sort mi mates out with free drinks and lets face it, I need all the help I can get. I mean I write a blog for fuck sake! If only I could poi, then I'd be cool and have chicas ladled all over me.

Kat, Georgie and Brooke

That's it for the mo really, like I said life is pretty easy going at the mo which doesn't make for good bloggery but hey if you don't like it, go wee in your own face or something. Ben's in Osaka at the moment with Jen for a week so I'm slap bang in the middle of a massive wankerthon which is scheduled to last at least until a week on Thursday.

Oh also realised I missed out some prime 'Shu'formation (ay ay?) from the last entry. First off, no picture - basically Kat has a pic of Shu in a rasta doorag and sporting a 'born in Jamaica' t-shirt but its gone missing and I don't want to give you a shoddy replacement photo of my idol (which is what I've done but at least he's wearing the same stuff and dropping fresh lyrics). Also I forgot to mention that Shu DJ's but failed to learn to mix. He overcomes this issue by seamlessly blending in tracks by use of a snazzy box which only use is to make laser sounds and so in between tunes blasts out laser noises like with live in the not too distant future or really far in the past, not sure which. Yes, I do intend to steal it.

Right-o I'm ikimas-ing my way outta this fucking hellhole called the intersplice, got to get a hearty nights sleep got as I've got a sexy hike planned tomorrow to get those mad freshies and probably shout 'shit dang dude' an unhealthy amount.

Ni-ku

P.S. Speaking of unhealthy we've developed a drunk snack of epic heart attack proportions. Basically its a microwave cheese calzone thing wrapped round a bit of fried chicken, so pretty much a pizza with fried chicken in the middle. I heard growing old is bollocks anyway and that heart failure is the new black, Vice said so and Dazed and Confused agreed.

The Juice of The Oranges

2008-01-18T11:13:00.000+09:00

Well it happened at last, we finally had a argument with Darrel.

It wasn't about the casual racism or the hundreds of other things we could take offence to but that age old argument of the washing up. Now to be fair, we are pretty slack at the washing up but not too bad but on the fateful night in question we had actually not done it because of a lack of washing up liquid, which we had just gone to pick up.

I was caught totally off guard as Darrel launched into attack mode as soon as we stepped into the door - 'can you do the facking washing up!'. I tried to defuse the situation at first by apologizing and saying we had just brought the liquid for that express purpose. He was having none of it and was swearing his tits off at me, so I decided fuck it and had a go at him instead for being a rude bastard with the manners of a carrot with leprosy. He then managed to lose all creditability in a few short words by saying we couldn't use the washing up liquid as an excuse as he had been using this....

Us: "That's surface cleaner Darrel! you can't wash our plates up with that!"

D: "Mate, mate, [meaningful point] its made with the juice of the oranges"

We couldn't hold back from laughing in his face. Ben being the more composed of us when off and got the said cleaner and quietly explained it was chemicals made to smell like orange and probably quite harmful to eat off of (due to the picture on the back explaining just that).

All in all, think we came off the better for the encounter, sure we do the washing up more regularly but Darrel was all apologetic about shouting and made himself out to be a massive plum (orange?) yet again. Water under the bridge in any case, we're all friends again but in related news we've been offered some accommodation in town, which means we may even have some sort of a social life soon (at 3 times the rent of the warebase but that's not important right?). So fingers crossed we may not live in a warehouse next week, this does mean saying goodbye to the cot though.

So my activities since last blog, apart from arguing with Darrel have mostly been snow shoveling and my god am I sick of it. The snow has really kicked up several notches in the last couple of weeks and we are getting about a foot a day on average, which means we've had to abandon all hope of ever being able to maintain the Lost Lab Japan edition (sorry whistler buddies). I do enough shoveling in my day job to not want to do it on my own time.

Aside from shoveling we've also had some sick days of riding recently. I have finally been given some guiding to do in the local awesomeness backcounty spot of Moiwa (lift access and everything) and all us NOASC bro's had avalanche training the other day which entailed a lot of photos, ridiculous powder and burying Mura (our buddy at NOASC who is kind of the company whipping boy but also really sound and has taken to patting me and Ben on the lower thigh as a sign of encouragement, we think...) in a snow cave, then collapsing it. Started out funny, then gradually crossed the border into bulling as no one dug him out for ages. Bit weird but he lived, just.

Ben: "Mura how was in there?"

Mura: "it was cold and dark and I couldn't breath because the snow was crushing my neck and I started to panic."

{Mura in a snowcave being poked by captain bro Yo-san [yes, even his name is bro'ed out], me looking on concerndingly [not a word, I know]}

That said, if they'd asked him to do it again, he would've gone straight in.

At the end of the hike we had to cross a river with a sketchy bridge as the only crossing point. Darrel was up first, shuffling along on his skis but about halfway across started to slip and so opted to fall onto the bridge in the splits position. Yes, we have it on camera and Will be uploaded once I can get the footage off the office. The memory is burned in my retina's for life I think.

Big Wednesdays (i.e. the only day when me and Ben both have a day off) involved a trip to a nearby resort called Rusutsu, which is damn cool. Based around 3 steep mountains it has much more of a north American feel to it, steeper and more spaced out trees than we've encountered so far. We're definitely going back and the other highlight of it is that the base doubles up as a theme park in the summer, so gives a healthy surreal Japanese feel to the place. PLUS little to no aussies (better watch was I type, there's a couple of prize aussies next to me right now, they can smell fear. One of them just said {about the bilingual keyboard} "awww fack, its turned to bloody Jap again" well put.)

Terry tree jib

The last topic of today's garbled nonsense is a man who should've made the blogosphere long ago, the manager of bar Splash, Shu.

Shu is a small Japanese fellow (but there all tiny ain't they? WEEEHAYY!!! sorry think the aussieness in infectious.) who clearly should have been born in Jamaica and lived his life as a rasta with poor taste in reggae. As it stands he's all those things except he lives in a tiny box room above a terrible bar made of chipboard, so basically a hobo.

He is also known to be;

- Incredibly rude, once insisting that Ben and I move down the bar so his friends could sit where we were sitting, when there is loads of other space. Confused at the request, we ignored him.

- A massive sleaze. He was sleazing a girl in splash one time and then grabbed her arse and rubbed her face with his hand. To appease the obviously disgruntled girl, he pawned her off with a free drink. A man can learn a few things from this casanova sexbomb. He also gave the girls a tip on New Year by only gave it to them by shoving the money down their tops.

- Called Sprinkles by some friends of the girls, who for some reason assumed this was his name and proceeded to call him it all the time. He doesn't seem to mind and it suits him better if you ask me, go Sprinkles.

That's your lot for today methinks. Be sure to stop by again soon for another chinwag, alternatively you can just read this again on Ben's blog. Yeah that's right Bennan I'm talking trash on yer blog, see you in Blogcourt ~ Its the dumpster down the alleyway next to Chicken Cottage in Tooting, the tramp inside wanking is the Judge.

Laters...

...on

Ben, soaring like some sort of majecstic eagle....

Pre-hike piss, textbook.

Deep pow, someone floundering in the background.

Onsen to celebrate a job well done, japanese bro's (T.P and Yo) givin' it the fair maiden for the lads....

La Maison du chocolat

2008-01-08T11:07:00.000+09:00

Weeehaaaay its the first blog of 08 suuun uggghh!

The title of this latest instalment will be familiar to some of you bloggernaughts as it is the name of the hottest new drink on the London/Niseko party scene. Yakult and Pernod, served on the rocks with the Yakult on the side, half open. For smooth and relaxing times think Maison du chocolat. But credit where credit is due and Mr Creamer must take a bow as he is this tipples true innovator.

So lets get to it, new years and James (the brother) and Matt's (friend of the brother) visit are now things of the past but let us all bow our heads and try and remember the highlights of the last couple o weeks.

Their stay got off to a fantastic start, which involved rain and some of the most vomit inducing aussie behaviour to date. Including dancing on tables whilst playing didgeridoo's and generally being the most annoying people of the past, present and future. This was only made better by seeing them having dinner with their mums later in the week, fucking wankers this is 2008! Who has a mum these days eh? Twats. OK, its out of my system now. Bastards. On the plus side one of the guys had a striking resemblance to a character from Ducktales who we couldn't quite recall, y'know the kind of spazzy duck who wanted to come on all the adventures but was generally told to 'get fucked' but they other ducks? After much research we concluded he was called 'Bubba the Caveduck' (who was accidentally brought back from the past but then accepted as one of the family). Also there was another character called Launchpad Mcquack but there's no corresponding Australian to him.

- A Caveduck

Anyway, so far so bad for James and Matt who had quickly started talk of going to Tokyo asap. However, some good snow and some less annoying nights out things were turned around and they eventually had a good ol time methinks. In particular new years where, due to poor organization and dithering we spent midnight in the street on our own. As this was clearly to be the highlight of our night we ambled back to our local 'Splash Bar' which was rife with underage kids, absolutely smashed (you tube video will hopefully appear soon). So after high fiving some kids we escaped to the old gimmer lounge upstairs (i.e. anyone over 20) and shouted a lot while me and Bennan got laughed at by pretty much every Japanese person for wearing tops based on a children's TV show. Incidentally this did nothing to dispel the rumours about us being gay that have somehow developed among our Japanese work colleagues. God knows how, it not like we talk about having baths together the whole time or anything...oh wait.

Other highlights included a Paper Mario chatterthon, Ben finally resisted the urge to watch freestyles on you tube and chatted to her. Only to confirm that she is incredibly boring; but then there's not much room for personality when you are made of paper.

Matt spent the latter part of the night pretending to be aussie and was continually called a 'bogen' by fellow aussies, who next time they saw him asked after his sister and cousins, who he insisted he was out with (but didn't seem to note that he was no longer Australian and now English).

Darrel, disgusted but the underage drinking tried to put an end to it by claiming to be Assistant Manager, nice.

Speaking of Darrel, he is now in charge of these lodges that our crummy company property manages and old chumpsworth here has to clean (as you expect when you get a job snowboard instructing). The whole operation is an absolute sham but does lead to some good Darrel moments, who is sort of like fat Ross' sidekick now.

Other news, got another instructing job to supplement my terrible wage.

Ben almost wrecked the fucktruck in an awesome skid (Que Darrel: 'just down the gears mate, down the gears, down the gears, etc, etc').

The warehouse's name is now the 'Warebase' a cross between warehouse and riverbase, its two previous names. It also sounds like the layer of a really shit superhero and can only be directed to by its location to Maison du chocolat.

Cool well I think we are all done here, please enjoy these photomotos to ease the pain of parting....oh also there's a video of some insects fighting.

Paper Mario (right) and Paper Luigi (left) and unknown man, most likely aussie.

Darrel, the man, the legend.

New years, 4 men, one street and a camera.

Fat Ross and Other Short Stories

2007-12-28T13:41:00.000+09:00

Festive greetings to all you blogheads out there. Apologies for my tardy blogging of late, it has been hard finding the time to sit down and sift out some rubbish from my thinkbox but not to worry the time is now upon us....

The owner of our shoddy 'company' (NOASC or Niseko Outdoor Adventure Sports Club, apparently aka Not Officially A Ski Company) has now arrived and after much build up of people referring to him as 'fat Ross' he more than lives up to his name by looking like a giant baby with grey hair. Inexplicably he turns out to be some sort of outdoor adventure god, used to be a sponsored skier/snowboarder, best rafting guide in Hokkiadio, climbing prodigy, etc, etc. All this with the obvious handicap of having no idea to run a business.

But its not all bad, our company does give us some benefits we wouldn't have in other normal, well run companies.

1. We only work part time (welll sort of, although we appear to be constantly on call for any job no one else can be arsed to do) which gives us a lot more riding time than we'd have anywhere else. Also they take us as part of training on various backcountry trips, like on boxing day where we got taken cat skiing on a mountain right on the coast called Iwanai. We had to help out clearing some of their runs of small trees so we each got given a shankin' knife and the got cracking stabbin' up nature for a bit. But after a bit of defacing nature we got some good riding in.

2. Our company has more Japanese staff than foreigners. Now most of you probably assume this would be the case anywhere round here BUT you're forgetting Niseko is actually in Melbourne and as such most ski schools are more aussie than man.

However, this can also be a bad thing as it means you are almost constantly out of the loop on the lads 'banter' not to mention where you are supposed to be or what you are supposed to be doing. On the other hand we have a rowdy group of Japanese bro's to teach messy rudeboy Landan slang to and we get the local knowledge your we wouldn't otherwise. The other day we went out for a staff meal and drinks which was awesome. After a hotpot thingy (forgotten the name but it was made of all intestines 'n stuff, sounds rubbish, tastes awesome) we were given some small energy drinks*, which everyone swears is the best hangover cure since not drinking then its straight into a good old fashioned pub crawl complete with tequila, a 50 Cent lookalike and a healthy amount of shouting.

*p.s. they don't really work but hey I enjoy the novelty and we've taken to drinking them before we go out all the time now.

35 Cent, in all his glory. A few days later I saw him snow shoveling, wearing the same glasses...

3. Access to vans (already had more than one incident of almost crashing due to careless skidding) is a valuable bonus as is the warehouse and although is out of town is laden with prime objects to make a mini park out of. Whistler bro's will be pleased to hear that Lost Lab Japan Edition is well underway and so far has a kink, straight rail and a C rail as well as a saucy drop/kicker.

So that's that J~life at the mo, Ni-San aka older brother is arriving ce soir so he can look forward to brotherly naked baths the likes of which haven't taken place since we were toddlers. Happy days.

Paper Mario and Darrel updates

Paper Mario.

Has been seen around numerous times since my last entry but with minimal interaction. She hangs out in the bar where our other NOASC buddies work a fair bit but mostly on nights we aren't there (strange...?). On crimbos eve she was there and Ben refused to talk to her. Opting instead to go over the the girls house over the road and watch clips of Jehst freestyles on youtube, on his own. I understand his viewpoint in that basically everyone he knows was pressuring him to get some paperass when really she's so shallow she's 2-dimensional.

Yessssss, I totally made a funny.

Did you see that?

Yeah you saw.

Other papermation is that she has a taller, more boring sister who we wittily named Luigi. However I'm pretty keen to find someone to fulfill the role of Bowser, mainly so I can talk about them constantly but more on that later on when we have named the said person.

Darrel.

I kinda feel sorry for the little guy, he does mean well but he's just a massive arse. He has taken to sucking up to fat Ross loads and also keeps nominating us for more work under the illusions that we actually like work and are well keen to do as much as we can instead of y'know snowboarding 'n stuff. The two most classic Darrel moments of the last weeks have been;

a) Being caught coming out of the toilet in the girls house with Georgina's laptop, to which he said 'there's no wireless connection in there'. Phew! Threw us off the sent with that one ay D-Man?

b) Constantly saying to us that when he is teaching Asian customers to ski that the 'just don't have the strength in their legs for skiing'. Haven't quite worked out the best response for this yet so at the moment I just don't bother.

'Hello, I'd like a ski lesson please'

'I'm sorry. You're a nice guy, I like you buuut you're just too asian to learn how to ski....'

Right well I'm all out of material and it wasn't exactly A-grade to start with, so I'd like to play out with this; a video of your friends and mine, the infamous stupid dogs of Yoyogi park, Tokyo.

Enjoy,

Mukku

Warehouse livin'

Bennan Bro'ing out on the pimpmoblie

Ben showing how small Japanese people are

Bit of scenery innit?

Bof...

2007-12-15T16:33:00.000+09:00

Yo, so was in the internetto cafe and thought I'd give it some blog time but instead spent the whole time fiddling with the font and other rubbish as no doubt you noticed immediatly. Have to say that I'm feeling a lot better about things now I'm scribeing it all in Times New Roman(tic).

Not a whole lot to report, moved into the warehouse and we now have our very own automobile to cruise for chicks in/do some irresponsible snow driving. We are currently debating names for both the warehouse and van/fucktruck. Any suggestions welcome, please send answers to:

The Warehouse
1 Warehouse Lane
Warehouseville
The Sticks
Japan

The winner gets a tiny can of unbelievably sweet coffee from a vending machine.

Oh also I've noticed a distinct lack of comments on the blog so far except from on Facebook. Priorities people, blog comments belong on the blog - people need to support this thing or it may not take off, like adult nappies.

That or no one is reading it.......Anyone?
.
.
.
.
....Hello?

Ahh screw you, I'll read it myself.

Ok byes. Remember, check out Bennan the blog for the reverse camera angles and exclusive behind the scenes footage. x

'Going down the Fox and Peanut?'

2007-12-11T20:52:00.000+09:00

So, last night we got the sake in like a couple of big lads and decided to hit the town with some fellow work associates. Went to the same bar of Ben's last triumph of wit to try and reel in some more punters, when who should we see? None other that the infamous PAPER MARIO!!!! (see blog entry 2 for further details). Clearly this is a sign from the heavens that it was meant to be between Ben and P.M. Not only this but she is here for the whole season, plenty of time for the poetry to unfurl....however another drawback (asides from being invisible for 2 days a year) is that she's Australian - will keep you posted on developments.

Today as part of training to make us all round adventure mountain men, we have been whitewater rafting and ab sailing so we can bang on about how great these activities are to potential customers. This, however is bollocks as both these activities are undertaken in the snow at about minus 10. So after clocking in at 8 in the morning, it was a quick vomit then straight out for rafting. In the moments when I wasn't trying desperately not to get frostbite in my toes and fighting the urge to be sick, it was quite cool. I puked a further 3 times during the day (one out of a moving car) which is clearly a good thing to do on your second day of 'work'.

In other news, local army-nut Darrell decided to try and fit a wire coat hanger over his body to show off about his caving skills or some such nonsense. After a good 10 minutes of gyrating he gave up halfway through amid torrents of laughter. Let's hope there's a rematch.

That's all for now, feeling like crap which means this post is probably below even my usual sub par standards.

Shreddin' and the bits inbetween.

2007-12-09T16:58:00.000+09:00

Bonjour, in Niseko (snowboard resort) now and internet access has been fairly patchy for the last week or so due to vague accommodation situations. Since our last sit down we left Tokyo and headed up north to Sapporo - the capital of the Hokkaido district, despite the best efforts of the Tokyo rush hour tube to see that we didn't make it (fortunately being a Laaandaaner my innate tube wisdom saw us through/had nothing to do with it).

Sapporo is a fairly modern city and for anyone who's been to North America its very similar to American cities in its structure, but it doesn't have much by way of sites so we didn't stick around very long. After our cutting comments about fellow hostelites I think the world was teaching us a lesson by putting us in a deserted and totally run down hostel where we barely saw anyone the whole time we stayed there. That said it did give Ben and me a chance to practice our Onsen skills in peace. Onsens are Japanese public baths (generally hot springs where available) where its mandatory to be naked except for a tiny towel you carry about with you, there's quite a few rules to adhere to, not to mention getting your rat out in front of a bunch of Japanese businessmen. Anyroad out, the hostel had its own 'onsen' i.e. a disgusting public bath which would be a good setting for a porno if you had about 10p to make it with. Cause we had no other patrons in the hostel this gave us free reign of the filth bath and vital practice before the main event(s) but on the down/up side it essentially boiled down to us taking a bath together, naked. Surprisingly we took to it pretty fast and now have clocked up mucho naked time together, seeing Ben's cock isn't even a challenge anymore, I'm so over it.

While we're on the topic of bathroom manner I should probably discuss the toilets here.

They rule.

Not only do you get a heated seat for those cool winter months but there are 3 settings for a good old cleanup when you're done. If you are ever feeling down all you need to do is have a poo and press one of the 3 buttons for a spray up the bum which leaves you laughing your arse off (eh, eh?) for a good 5 minutes.

So after bathing and pooing a lot we got the train from Sapporo to Niseko which was all pretty like and covered in snow, lovely. At present things are pretty vague with the job and accommodation, in that we don't really have much to do workwise right now apart from shoveling snow and putting together our accommodation, which as it happens is a warehouse about 3km out of town in the middle of nowhere. It doesn't look too bad but means we'll have to drive everywhere, which could be an issue considering how bigger a lads we are and how much we love the flappin' beerios innit? That said we will most likely just make the warehouse an edgey shoreditchesque ravebox and ship in everyone's favorite techno DJ's plus a mountain of ket, let the party come to us. bosh.

Sharing this venue/storeroom with us is another of the staff where we work who is an aussie guy by the name of Darrell who is an army survival man on the sexy side of 40. We speculated about him being a rapist before he arrived (after seeing a mugshot), then after meeting him briefly decided he was the greatest man ever, then after spending an evening with him became disillusioned due to his constant talking, tendency to knowitallism and refreshing racism. Darrell, Darrell, Darrell...

Everyone else is pretty cool, and the riding/snow is awesome with a lot of scope to have a badass crew of Japanese brosefs.

So all said and done we are still trying to find our feet a bit in the resort as well as gaining the trust of some of our Japanese co-workers so they can dispel the many mysteries surrounding our various encounters we have had which end in 'Japanese only, Japanese only!'. So far our conclusions on these places is that they are some sort of role-playing hotel, where after a hard day's work salarymen go and relax in their favorite fantasy situation, sexy school teacher, saucy interview or just getting wanked off in a bathroom. Who knows? I'll tell you who - Japanese people and they ain't talking. But not to worry Ladlock Holmes is on the case. Mystery solving AWAYYYYY.

I'll leave you with this amazing encounter - Its all going off the chain in this bar called Wild Bill's. Smashed, 18 year old aussies everywhere, so much so that girls are using the men's toilets (n.b. these are labeled 'ladies' and 'gentlemen, remember this.) Ben is queuing for the gentleman's toilets which is currently occupied by a girl. Whilst chatting to other toilet-enthusiasts a girl emerges from the ladies toilet, to which Ben says:

'Shall I use the Ladies or shall I wait and be a Gentleman about it?' {raises eyebrows}

Aussies stare at him for a bit, then resume their conversation (sans Ben).

errm...bye.

Hungry for more? Can't wait until the next exciting installment? come on down to Ben's blog for fun frolicks and sexytimes at www.mytb.org/bennan

Bennan, Blogging his tits off.

Sweet, sweet drinks machines, love of my life.

Sensoji Temple in Tokyo.

'What's all this then? A wedding or something?' Oh wait it actually is. Should probably get out the way...

Japan 'n shit.....well, Tokyo.

2007-12-04T12:16:00.000+09:00

OK, so here I am in Japan writing the ol' blog to sum up mine and Ben's depressing lives. Gonna try and avoid the usual travel update crap where possible and keep it strictly regular crap, now comes the part where I try and remember the story so far....

The flight over was fairly uneventful (its a plane journey, I'm sure you can picture the scene. Although I did manage to squeeze in some great Hollywood tatbusters such as Pirates of the Caribbean 3 (henceforth POC3), what the hell happens in that film? Even Keith Ricards was bollocks and not even so bad that he was funny. Anyway back to it, gone on a bit of a tangent here...) except we did sit next to this Australian come Shoreditch uber trendy girl who's life basically revolved around raving, DJing, fashion and talking about the previous 3 to people she sits next to on planes. She very kindly gave us some tips of what to do in Tokyo which became the basis for our obsession with rationalising Toyko in London terms i.e. Tokyo's Camden, Oxford st, West Acton bus stop, etc.

After arriving and getting settled we worked out our surroundings and confirmed we were in a fairly quite part of the city (Putney), which is quite a good place to stay considering how crazy some parts of the city can be. The first day or two was basically spent staring at drinks vending machines which are literally everywhere carry a host of fantastical wonders to satisfy anyone who loves trying random novelty food substances such as a drink with bits of aloe vera in or amino acid supplements or a can of coffee endorsed by Tommy Lee Jones. The Japanese vending philosophy is essentially 'why have 1 machine when you can have 8' too true, they all have options for hot or cold drinks and right now we are working on a ranking system of our favoured drinks which we hope to have ready in early 2012.

When we finally could walk past a vending machine without stopping (about day 4) we took up our other favourite pastime of looking at food ~ most restaurants have delightful plastic replicas of their dishes outside, which instantly puts you off ordering them for fear that the food is really that shiny. Food presents more of a problem because it involves human interaction which is where our bumbling Japanese skills come into their element. Despite our best efforts we are usually reduced to pointing and vague non-sensical hand gestures. Even our efforts to impress are met with indifference, most meals we try to end with a comment such as 'that was delicious' (oyshi katta) which barely even raises a look of contempt. This could be down to our sub par pronunciation which generally sounds like us saying O Shay who is probably an Irish gigolo or something. That said most people we have met are keen to help despite our blatant culture faux pas.

Erratic sleep patterns from jet lag meant our hostel room continually had people sleeping throughout the day, which turned out to be a good thing cause our conclusion is that most people you meet in hostels are massive gits who spend their whole time talking about themselves, Thailand and trying to one up anyone/thing that anyone else has to say (which is usually met with the same treatment). So asleep was how we liked our hostel comrades most. Ben decided to fall in love with a beauty who had a face like a scrunched up bit of paper and was later renamed Paper Mario, however it would've never worked due to her 2-dimensions she would've been invisible for approx 2 days a year, which no doubt would cause tension. I think Ben's main attraction to her was that she was western as he keeps saying things like 'its good to see some western girls' even though we've been gone a week. I'm starting to think he may not be joking. Other hostel greats included an Australian man who was playing this trivia game and would only ask questions he knew the answers to such as 'which country is the biggest coal exporter?' (surprise, surprise its Australia. Damn Australians! but more on that later..) .

After alienating ourselves from the rest of the hostel community it was time to hit the town. Cool parts of Tokyo are Shibuya (Soho/Covent Garden) which is awesome for shopping if you have the dollar to spend and has loads of crazy Japanese stuff like elephant trunk boxers where your wang is the trunk and this massive manga store called Mandrake. Now, fuck knows how no one has brought this to my attention before but on top of your regular Hentai (porn comic) which are very graphic and full of all sorts, there are also peado mangas ~ NO JOKE! Comics literally about having sex with kids, even some about having sex with toddlers, all illustrated!! There's a morbid fascination with the covers but we didn't have the minerals to look inside/purchase them. I'm tempted to drop a line to the Daily mail and The Sun and see if they want to have a nonce-bashing field trip to Tokyo for their readers, god knows how this stuff is legal but there you go.

So after settling on some plain old gay porn comics we headed off. There's some good nightlife to be had in Shibuya or at least so were told by our trendy raver plane companion (who once went to this club in Berlin for 16 hours - it was amazing, etc, etc) she recommended this bar which has no name and is only a tiny doorway (classic 'ditch) but failed to mention it doesn't open before 1. After hanging around there for a bit we decided to sack it off and save clubbing in Tokyo for our next trip due to subway closing times (p.s. we have the Tokyo equivalent of an oyster ~ a pasmo, such city slickers) and other balls.

We also got told to check out Tsukiji fish market, which takes place early doors 5 (Shoreditch plane girl advocated pulling an all nighter then hitting the fish market for brekkie, the manic) and is basically where all of Tokyo's fish comes from. It's wicked there's people everywhere driving round on these tiny fishmobiles and shouting. There's also some fish there but they don't say much. After wandering around like dazed idiots we got some sashimi freshly cut, which was amazing (but did give me a dicky bum later).

Another highlight was Yoyogi park on Sundays, where anyone and everyone comes to partake in their favoured leisure pastimes. Depending if you're a camp break dancer/mime artist, a fat martial arts coach or a gang of 50's greasers, everyone has their place. We pottered around for a bit laughing at people but decided unanimously that the pen were you put your tiny stupid dog to play with other tiny dogs was the out and out winner. If you like seeing sausage dogs in sweatshirts and sunglasses chasing other sausage dogs in t-shirts then this is the place for you. Stayed there for a good hour or 2.

Whew! that's some serious blogging coming at ya like a sausage dog in ray-bans. Should probably go and do something now, although in this internet cafe you get a private booth (which its acceptable to sleep/wank in), free drinks, ice cream and I have a little window to wave and hold hands with Ben in the next booth.

Be sure to tune in for the next vomit inducing instalment which includes:

Electric toilets
Stereotypes vs reality - clash of the titans
Our first bath experience, with each other (not in a gay way, well as ungay as two naked men sharing a bath can be)
Photos - if I can work out how to upload them
Cockney Japanese 101
Other stuff I've forgotten about

Till next time.

Love,

Biscuit

Blog'o'clock

2007-12-01T16:08:00.000+09:00

So I thought it's about high time I got myself onto this 'blogosphere' I'm hearing so much about. Clearly people need to hear all the witticism's and pokes at life's foibles I'm always coming out with when no one is around so I thought I'd jot them down to enjoy at one's own leisure. Once established I'm sure the Guardian will a-come knocking with a columnist position as an unfunny Charile Brooker.

Well entry number 1 is going down in flames probably best to kick it to death now and end the suffering for everyone.