2009 Motorcycle Toy Run

バイク



The next day was all about giving. Charity motorcycle toy runs are common the world over, but never in Japan. My riding group, Gaijin Riders, planned to change that. We spent months gathering toys and donations, then rode 80 deep down to an orphanage in Odawara. Most of us put Santa outfits on top of our riding gear, and taped Santa hats to our helmets. Here's some photos. Unfortunately, I can't post the pictures of the kids, as Japan is crazy strict about privacy. Like for some reason you, the psycho pedo dude reading my blog, is gonna track down some kid from a picture I put up. Anyways...





















Thanks for the people who donated, you brought some happiness to a lot of kids who were dealt some shitty cards.

Seriously though, the kids were hella cute, even the 10 year old boy who punched me in the nuts... twice.

And here's an article from the Japan Times about the event.

Booze and Battles

酒 = Booze



Bonenkai, 忘年会, literally means "forget the year party". Yeah, it's another excuse to drink in this great country. I don't mean have a drink, I mean drink drink.



Your best option is one of the cheap izakayas. At the 270 yen place, we could secure an all-you-can-drink plus hella food plan for about $20 a person. Kinnokura is all over the place, and that's a good thing. If you're going for fine dining... well actually this is some decent shit. I've had some downright nasty izakaya food, and usually the more you pay the better it is, but we got away with a decent meal. By the way, when you get a set course, it's almost always fried chicken, fried fish, and some other fried stuff. And usually a salad.



Cheers!



Yes, I'm drinking out of an ashtray. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Shuddupayou!

戦い



Once again, my buddy Guy had an MMA match. This was some sort of amateur championship night, so there was a lot on the line. His opponent was some Brazilian dude. So for 3 hours people are screaming in Japanese, (Nagare!), then suddenly it changes to English (Fuck im up!) and Portuguese (El puncho... I don't know). By the way, Portuguese sounds rad when screamed (scrum?) by women at a fight. Just sayin.



And.... begin!



Don't try any of that fancy high kicking unless you want this to happen:



"This" being a beat down of epic proportions.



A rare moment when pain wasn't being dished out aplenty.



Pretty one sided, with most of the action being Guy punching the dude's face while he was pinned.



Or standing.



Guy won.



Then we went and drank at the 100 yen for a beer or highball place nearby. Quote of the night from my friend K, it was her first time seeing a fight.

"Does getting punched in the leg bruise their thigh? Cause I like wearing skirts and don't want bruises."

Free Art: Entering No Man's Land

There's an art exhibit at the former French embassy going on now. My bad, it ends in like a week. If you live in Tokyo, head out to Hiro-o. It's free. Here's the info.

My friend Yuichiro's had an exhibition there. He made tours of places using Google Street View. But check out when you take photos of a DLP projection at high shutter speeds.



Fresh!



There were these weird cameras that looked like they were part of the building. What the hell does this do?



My favorite exhibit. Dude made little plastic shells for hermit crabs to move into.





More weird surveillance equipment?



Some kinbaku applied to a consenting tree.








You should go. And check out the new French embassy next door, it's hella utilitarian and scary, while the old one is all artsy.

Hawaii, Where It's Nice

ハワイー



Day 1 - I landed at Honolulu International Airport at 6:30am. Past the customs dude who gave props to the 山手線, and after a quick ride on the wiki-wiki tram, I pulled up to the inter-island ticket counter. Turns out my connecting flight was almost 4 hours away. I need a drink!



Shit. Airport booze is overpriced by American standards, but under-priced by Japanese. Anyways, it's probably for the best, as I was perpetually drunk for the last 4 days, except for the 8 hours I went on a charity motorcycle toy run. More on that later, as I still have to blur all the children's faces in Photoshop, Japanese style.



What to do... get my BK on? Maybe another bar?



Nope. But I ran across this.



Fuck, I just felt nostalgia from a damn coupon magazine. You see, it's been 13 years since I've been to the Hawaiian islands, but during childhood I went almost every year with my family on some sort of home swap deal with family friends. Well I'm back.

Reading a copy of "101 Things to Do" gave me an idea of exactly what I do NOT want to do.

• A luau. I got busted for sneaking some mai tais back when I was 18 at a luau and hate them now. Fuck you! I'm not a part of your system.
  
• Anything with the word "adventure" in the description
• Holy Shit, an ATV tour company. Whatever, but check out the website name - www.ridetherim.com.
• I'm anti-dolphin tourism, because I watched the Cove last week. Now bring on the burgers and Kalua Pork.

Day 2 - Damn, I can't stomach American food. What's up with that? Too much sauce? Must be jet lag or something, because this is coming from someone who eats greasy ass ramen 4 times a week.



Now this I could handle. With limes picked from the tree outside.





A bit of a misnomer,



as deep fried, covered in sickly sweet sauce fish isn't really home style out in Japan. Maybe down in Kyushu, the one place I haven't been.



Homemade ahi poke (too much salt though, my bad).



Coconut crust on fish is crazy good.



Kalua pork is also crazy good.



Kona coffee from the source.



On my last day I had fresh sea turtle. It was good, but I could only eat like 2 bites and had to toss out the rest. もったいない！

Day 3 - Green beach!



Black beach!





Lava!



Day 4 - Hilo has a lot of rain, so there is a perpetual flow of water and some pretty rad waterfalls. But mostly it's just an overlook.





Pee Pee falls is a bit harder to get to. Climb over some rocks for 15 minutes. Try not to drop your big heavy SLR camera. Then chill with some local reggae. These are the guys from Soul Redemption.





Dude can sing. Hopefully they'll come through Tokyo someday, though Japan has a fairly whack (though popular) reggae music scene.



Check em on myspace.



Day 5 - Hit up the other side of the island, the dry side. My dad was talking about one of his favorite beaches. White sand with plenty of shady trees. Minus the shady trees. I guess there was a fire.



Day 6 - I really wanted to see the lava up close. Access from the East is monitored, but the West is totally free. For real, the West side is much better than the East side. The sun may rise in the East, but it sets in the mutha fuckin West.



If you want to walk for 2-3 hours each way.



Over a hardened lava field.



The lava flow changes often. I got about an hour in and figured I'd give up. Good hike though, as I was all alone on the rocks.

Day 7 - 10 - Other random photos from my trip.



People love Hawaii sooo much! Love is a scar on a native tree.



My dad's place is.... いなか.



But inaka means hella wild fruits growing wildly.





This little spider was humping my beer for like 10 minutes.





What up dood?



Your friend has the right idea.



See ya Hawaii!