StepSealCrossPushAndGo

I would love to ball with this guy. I'm not sure if this guy is for real or not, but he does have a lot of videos up. If you are lazy, just watch from about the 1:10 mark. Unbelievable.

Fat Weekend

I had a pretty good couple of days off this weekend. Cruised with some really cool Japanese friends on Friday night, catch last train and get home around 130, sleep, get up at 430 and go surf. It was me, Keoki, and 山口さん, and while the waves had good size, you would get pulled like crazy, like 1 kilometer down the beach crazy. We got sick of the paddling and went to another, mellower spot, where Keoki proceeded to own. I don't have pictures of it, only this, of the lunch we had after it.

That night, I hung out with my friend Eriko, and her visiting friend, 吉田君 who was entering into the area surf contest the next day. So, we went. Was a pretty mean setup, but the waves weren't really cooperating, or I should say the wind wasn't. 吉田君 got shafted in the first round, so we didn't get a chance to see him do his thing. (One of my students actually made it to the semifinals, but he couldn't get loose in his heat, and I couldn't get a picture with him cuz he was pissed off). Here's some pics from the contest.

The break. Windy and blown out, but everyone tried their hardest.

吉田君. He didn't want his picture taken, he said, because it would be too embarrassing.

At a nice cafe after, Cadillac Ranch, where there are a couple of dogs that hang out with you while you eat. This guy took a nap under our table.

Going for a walk.

Also, this weekend was Nick's Birthday. He apparently had a pretty sick weekend as well, hitting the game winner in the championship game of the annual Stubbs Tournament. I'm happy for him, but probably would've been angry at him for not passing the ball in the clutch to someone who knows what to do with it...haha nah nah nah. I found this video, reminds me a lot of what it was like growing up with Nick. Happy Birthday.

Bored at Work: Slip-ups

I've finished my classes for the day, and the planning for next week, so, again, I explored Youtube when I should have been studying Japanese. 暇人だよね. In class, I couldn't get a couple of words out, and said something I probably didn't mean. For example, today, I had a student whose name was 野崎(Nozaki), but I misread her handwriting, and in front of the class, said 覗き(Nozoki), which, unfortunately means 'peeping tom'. I thought it was hilarious, but the girls in the class didn't really. Here's some other unintentional comedy stuff I found on Youtube.



I like the reaction.



Again, check out Lavin.



Classic.

Surf, for me, recently...

has been a lot like this.


It is good to get back into the water though. One main difference between Hawaii and Japan, is that I can be as kooky as I want on a wave, and not be called a 'honky' after. Yesterday, me, 山口さん、徳永さん、and this kid from Genyo High School had Keya pretty much all to ourselves for an hour or so. 30 minutes of that hour happened to be after dark, but waves are waves. This weekend it is supposed to come up again, so I will try and take pictures if it does. We'll see.

Bored at Work: Random Pictures

Testing out the panorama option on my phone camera.

A dude, just knocked out on the train.

Showin' off my hops to Keiichi.

In what way?

Introducing 信長Imholte. Or, Nobu.

Jellyfish Stings

These muhfuggas have been owning me recently. Last month, there was a nice swell right after お盆, and I was out there for all of it. Unfortunately, no one told me that the week after お盆 was a time for the spirits to return from the ocean, as poisonous jellyfish. These happened like a week after each other. I hadn't been stung that badly before, but man, these things straight ITTTCCH. Like all day, all night, wakeupandcantgobacktosleep itch.

WU-TANG! WU-TANG!

Nastiness at work.

Ball in Japan: 県民大会 and Drunken Huddles

県民大会

Every year in Japan, individual prefectures hold tournaments to see who the best team in the prefecture is. This year, I was lucky enough to be selected for my area's team. I've only recently been able to run like I used to, so the timing of the this tournament was excellent. I had a pretty good game, but we lost, in overtime. The first three quarters for me were good, but I choked hard in the 4th. One charging call, missed layup, and two missed free throws. That is six points. We lost by six. It's not all my fault though. I cannot tell you how many times I said this sentence, in Japanese:

Guard the three! Guard the THREE! Don't just let him shoooot! (スリーチェック!)

I know all the pics are of me. I wanted all of the pics, but apparently our photographer guy misheard me and just sent me the ones with me in them. Whatever. I also got a nice parting gift...in the 4th quarter, going for a rebound, I caught a nice elbow in the eye. After two days, it looks like this.

打ち上げ

The best part of tournament days, though, is the afterparty. Everyone got together and we just got lit. Here's the pics. Most are pretty blurry, so bear with me.

The guy in the yellow shirt is the team captain, りゅうじ. He's talking to かじわら about rebounding, I think.

Random shots.

I like this one. That's 岡崎さん with one of the girl's team members. She was crying, I think, because some of the younger girls on the team wouldn't listen to her when she was giving directions. They lost too. I thought it was awesome that she could cry about it at the bar after. These are real ballers right here.

My favorite shots are these, though...

25 people, standing outside of a bar, in a team huddle. My kind of people.

Miyazaki: チキン南蛮, Early Morning Sessions, and X

Last week, we had a three day weekend, and a typhoon was coming. That can only mean one thing...surf. My boy Keiichi was visiting from LA, and Keoki, Ashley, and Steve were all ready to kill shit. Here is the crew:

We jumped into a car on Saturday morning, and jammed our way to Miyazaki. I had been once before, to Hyuuga, with my boys 山口さん and 徳永さん, but the board I used on that trip, as I came to realize on this trip, sucked, and it was ridiculously crowded. So, none of us knew what type of waves to expect.







Me doing my Jeff Lim impression.







We get to Miyazaki City, and before our check-in at the hotel, we decided to get a session in at 木崎浜. There was a surf contest that weekend, which one of my students happened to be entered in, so it was pretty crowded. I was using a board I had never used before, so I was a little nervous, but it turned out to be alright. It didn't look too good from shore, but it was one of those situations where it looks a lot better once you get out there.

Went out, drank, slept, and came back out for a morning session...

It was good, but, again, crowded. Keoki had done some research and thought we should try and follow the coast south to see if we could find some different types of spots.

Steve, looking from the road, found this nice little right, that honestly didn't look like much. As we got closer though, it looked nicer and nicer. Aaaaand...there was nobody out.

Steve, getting barreled, and me, on the next wave, me getting shut down.

I could have stayed there all night. It was the most fun I have had surfing since leaving Hawaii, definitely. The boys, surfed to exhaustion.

Surf til dark, jump in the car, and meet some of my boys from Fukuoka who also made the trip down. Get drunk, eat killer food, run back to the hotel for more nonsense. It's hard to explain the last photo, but it pretty much sums up the trip. X GONNA GIVE IT TO YA!

The End.

First things first...

The Need to Remember

I used to think I could remember everything in my head, and when asked to bring it up, be able to describe it easily. But, when you have a hundred thoughts and see a thousand things worth talking about each day, it's probably a good idea to write some of it down. This will hopefully address that issue. Let's get started.