Foshigadow!

I love it.

Busy

Recently, had a lot of stuff to do. Beginning of the new school year, so there is a lot of stuff going on. Meeting the new students, getting the curriculum together, ironing out everything.

Too much stuff has gone on recently that I could post on, so I'll talk about what is coming up. Next week, got the Yamaguchi surf trip with Steve and Keoki, pending swell. The week after that, my predecessor at this job, who everyone I've ever met has said is the coolest guy in the world, is gonna come to visit. The week after THAT, going to Hawaii. And the week after THAAAT, Las Vegas, for my brother's wedding. Gonna be awesome.

I Have To

In my daydreams, my dunk would be like this. Sneak up on the dudes and hit 'em before they knew what was coming. Go ahead, Sasha, go ahead.

A Quick Rundown

Been real busy recently.

Seems like I'm gonna be busy until the summer time, with Nick's wedding and the Hawaii trip right before that, and right before that, the exploratory Yamaguchi surf trip with Keoki and Steve. Work is pretty exciting too, we have a Hungarian exchange student that's gonna be with us for an entire year, going to classes and living the Japanese life. She doesn't speak a word of Japanese though. No surf recently. Did have a basketball tournament though, we were humbled in the championship game. Here's some pics and quick captions/stories behind 'em.

Had our area basketball tournament the other day. Because we had won our C-level league at the last tournament, we were moved up to the B-level. First game we were lucky to pull the other weak team, and beat them. Then proceeded to get murdered in the championship. I got a lot of points, but all after the game had already been decided. (We started the game down 19-0!)

The pictures above are from the tournament after party. It was held at the team captain's house, Ryuuji. He has that keychain, and is unsheathing the sword up top.

These are from the other day. I had gotten off work early and wanted to check out the surf, even though I knew it was only going to be knee high. The second picture is me reacting to the light changing and missing the picture of the landscape I was about to take.

Slid up to Kokura this past weekend to get nots with the boys, and Ash. After talking trash about everything from OIA/BIF/ILH rivalries, if smoothies are gay or not, and my impregnable trump strategy, I got really drunk and passed out.This is the only picture I feel comfortable showing.

Mongolian Studs

The other night, a couple of friends and I hit up a Mongolian restaurant. The story, in pictures.

Where the trouble started.

The first level.

Mongolian, (probably not actually).

Level two. Points of interest: And1 shorts rolled up, ridiculous headonly tan. And, I don't know how Brent got that last shot.

My dad would be pissed...I let him get the wrist angle. Lost.

Bored at Work: Wow

Stole this from Truehoop today, but man, how nuts is this?! My measurement was 7 inches. Try yours.

Compare hands with Al Jefferson.

Satoshi's Wedding

This past Saturday, a good friend of mine, 聡 (Satoshi), got married to his long time girlfriend, ゆき (Yuki, don't know her kanji). I know Satoshi from my basketball team, the G Suns. He's the resident big man on the team, and always throws nice outlet passes.

This also happened to be my first real Japanese wedding. I had been to a bunch of 二次会's (nijikai - wedding reception-type party) before, but I had never been close enough to the couple to actually be invited to the real thing. There's a lot of etiquette involved in a Japanese wedding's preparation (RSVP, special envelopes, real polite language), so I was kinda surprised to see the actual ceremony.

(On a side note: I had talked to my boy Nick Riley about this a while ago, but somewhere along the line, we had become Japanese snobs. In the sense that, when we came to Japan, we didn't know one Japanese phrase. To be honest, I am pretty proud of my Japanese, but I really shouldn't be critiquing other foreigners' Japanese, as there are other people who are ridiculously better than I am - Joel, Sean, Tim. But, when I hear someone say they are very good at it, and then proceed to be terrible...it's like nails on a chalkboard. Really.)

The wedding had Western and Japanese elements to it, which was cool. What was interesting though, was the Japanese interpretation of the Western style wedding. In the chapel, there was an American pastor, who was doing the service in Japanese, which was pretty interesting. (See above.) What is lacked though, is the solemnity of a traditional wedding. The entire time cell phones were out, pictures being taken, conversations held. I was a little surprised, but, when in Rome.

After that, we moved on to the reception, which was awesome. Satoshi and Yuki were seated at the very front of a big ball room, with all the guests seated by affiliation. (I was with the ballers.) There were slideshows, speeches, crying, and the team had a little routine set up. Our point guard, Ryuji, got a golden basketball and had all of the team members sign it. (I signed, we gotta protect the lane!). We lined up around the room, and passed it around to all the members until finally, it got to the front where Satoshi was sitting, and the captain of the team handed it to him, saying, 'For your special day, since you lost your balls, heres a golden ball.' It was awesome.

After that, we headed to the afterparty, from where things get a little blurry. A bunch of stuff went down, but these were the only things that I got pictures of. Good times.