Ryan
Chasing greatness

I never have bothered tagging my posts.  That effectively makes my blog unsearchable to the public.  I suppose that is fine considering I suck at writing and things can generally be pretty dull.  Still, sometimes I do tag my posts when I think they should be found by others.  That leaves some tagged and some not, and I can’t stand the uneven nature of it.  So I am seriously considering going back and tagging all of my 200+ posts.

Other than that I am using my friend’s Wii.  I got it hooked up to the wireless router and I am going to get my butt kicked in some games today!

I thought I would write about one of the awesome things Japan has that America could absolutely benefit from.

ATMs.

Now, obviously Japanese ATMs are different.  Otherwise you would think I lived under a rock my entire life and have just recently been exposed to things like ATMs, escalators, and conveyor belt sushi (Awesome!).  I haven’t been living under a rock.  They are different.

First off, instead of having a keypad and those 6-8 buttons along the side of the screen, they are almost all touch screen systems.  This is awesome for a lot of ways.  It means that if I go to a convenience store ATM it probably has my bank’s system in it because all it can just load up my bank’s interface and do whatever banking magic it does.

In terms of security its also better because things like keyloggers under the key pads are impossible because its a touch screen with different interfaces.

So we have a touch screen, and we have lots of banks at 1 machine.  Awesome.

Next up is the pin entry thing.  Know how you enter your pin on the keypad and you vaguely consider that someone is watching and you huddle closer to the keypad?  Kind of like when a guy pees at a urinal and suddenly gets “size conscious” and hugs up closer?  Yeah, well you don’t have to worry about that here because instead of the keypad being a 3 by 4 array of numbers, its a 4 by 4 array with the extra spaces padded with 0s.

Sound weird?  It is.  But in a good way.  See they randomize the keypad on the touchscreen every time you use it, so nobody can really figure out what your numbers are.  If you worry about it, you can hit a randomize button again and start over.  Pretty sweet!

Know what else is awesome?  Of course you don’t.  Let me tell you.

So when you want to deposit money in America through an ATM you put it in an envelope, write the total, and then punch that total in on the screen.  Then some time later that money gets counted and everything is cool.  That could take a while and I have no idea what happens if you are way wrong.  Like you put a dollar in and type in 1,000,000.

Well here, you can put all of the money in the machine without an envelope and it will count it for you and confirm the total before instantly crediting your account.

Are the waves of awesome rocking your world on the beach of amazement yet?  There is more.

I don’t care about my Japanese bank or its account.  I need it for utility purposes only.  The main one being that I want to send money home.  Well I go to an ATM, push the bank transfer button and it pulls up my bank transfer information.  It remembers everything and tells me the fees and as soon as I push the button, its done.  It isn’t quite instantaneous that the money is in my US account, but it is pretty freaking fast.

They also tell me the exchange rates so that I know when the best day is to go.

One last thing.  ATMs are never outside.  They are always inside.  Even if that means that they build a little booth that has the ATM and enough room for one person.  That one room is clean, well lit, and has AC.  I love it.

ATMs are awesome here.  Plain and simple.

So I normally take the approach of just writing a matter-of-fact account of what happened.  I don’t put a lot of effort into the story of it.  Because I’m lazy.  Today I will make an exception.

Coincidentally, this is my 200th post.

We were in Bangkok for a little more than 1 day.  That left us practically no time to see or get a feel for the city, so we had gotten a 1-day itinerary from wikitravel.

First we took the Skytrain (Think monorail!) to our stop.  We walked across a bridge and down into the river banks below.  This area was filthy and scary.  It would be like if you took a homeless person, dragged him behind your truck for an hour, and rubbed crap in their face to add a nice sheen, that would be the people down here.  Of course they wanted to sell you food.

Anyway, we acted like nervous white people and scuttled down to a pier where a boat was rumored to pick people up.  There were no signs or anything, just the nearby homeless fruit zombies.

A boat did show up, and we jumped on, because it only stopped for about 30 seconds.  We paid our fair of 8 baht and were sped down the river.  It was a pretty cool ride.

We got dropped off at the old area of Bangkok where the old temples and palaces are.  This is the tourist area because of the history and stupid 1-day itineraries. 

So we are talking about what we wanna do, and a guy comes up to talk to us.  He asks us where we are from and what we are going to see.  He asked for our map and begins to mark it with big sight seeing spots.  He also tells us that there is a big trade show going on nearby, so the government has compensated the taxis to make them really cheap and reliable.

We thought, “Oh, here’s the part where he says, ‘Get in my taxi.’” 

He didn’t, he just wished us a good day and walked off.

We got in a taxi and went to see a 40 meter tall buddha.  He was tall.

Next we went to the lucky buddha.  It was the next closest thing.  We never saw a buddha, the building it was in was shut tight.

While we were walking around looking for a weak spot to sneak in, a guy came up and started asking us really weird questions like, “What are you doing here?  Why are you in Bangkok?  Why are you at the Lucky Buddha?”  These are kind of hard questions to answer, but we fumbled through it.  We went on to have a really interesting conversation.

Turns out that the Lucky Buddha is rarely open to public because when it is all of Thailand flocks there for blessings in weddings, business, or whatever.  It was weird that some foreigners were there.  The guy then went on to tell us about his honeymoon.  They were going to Sydney for 4 weeks.  That is a pretty impressive honeymoon.

We kept talking and he told us all about the people and culture of Bangkok and asked us if we were going to the trade show today.  We said that we weren’t and he said that we should.  Then he told us all about how Thailand is renown for its sapphires and rubies and that every year the government invites jewelry wholesalers and such to build business relations.

That happened to be this week.  He told us how that this is so important to the government that they even go so far as to pay off the taxis who are normally rather corrupt so that all the people who come can have a really great and cheap time and go back with great stories of Thailand.

He also told us that you don’t actually have to be a wholesaler to go to this show, but that you will be treated differently.  If you are on a tourist visa they will allow you to buy one set of jewelry per passport at an untaxed wholesale price.

We had no idea what he was really getting at, but he kept explaining how that gems are one of those few things that never deprecate and are getting rarer, and how most banks in Thailand offer no interest in bank accounts which makes retirement and savings nearly impossible.  So most people try to get these sapphires and such and hang on to them because they are always more valuable.

He told us how they come to Bangkok almost every year for this, buy a set of jewelry and then sell it back to other jewelers with the normal markup and tax which, he admitted, depended a lot on your personality, but that he always got what he paid in.  He has since gotten good enough to pay for his entire honeymoon from this one trade show.

After we talked for a while we said goodbye and decided to go to our hotel because it was getting toward lunch time and we wanted to make plans to see kickboxing later.  We told our taxi and he said that was fine, but he needed to go to the trade show to get his gas voucher to keep the fare at the low price.  We said sure, and went to the trade show.

The trade show was a pretty neat place.  Thailand is seedy and filthy everywhere but here.  Men in uniform stop traffic to escort you inside where you are greeted by so many people in suits that show you all of the jewelry and give you a brief education and get you drinks and whatnot.

Megan fell in love with a ring after about 15 seconds from getting in the door.

They asked us how old we were and told us that we were welcome to buy anything, but they would put a spending limit on us due to our young age and explained all of that.

Eventually we settled for 2 rings and a pendant.  We told them that we didn’t have passports or credit cards, or any money for a deposit.  It was all locked in our hotel safe.  They said that wasn’t a problem.  Megan’s ring had to be sized up 5 sizes which required about 2 hours, so in the meantime we would go with a private driver and a representative to the hotel where we would complete the paperwork and pay from there.

They said that for the rest of the day we could use that private driver as our own and he would even take us to the airport.

This was crazy because we were smelly and sweaty tourists being told that we were going to be chauffeured the rest of our vacation.

We got in the car, the representative  with their briefcase got in too, and we went to the hotel.  She took all of the paperwork out and a portable credit card machine and walked us through all of the legal documents and we paid for our jewelry.

She said that the driver will take us anywhere we want for the rest of the day and to the airport in the morning.  She also said that when our sizing is done that they will come to us wherever we are in the city to deliver our jewelry.  Fancy!

Our driver, Tik, asked us what we wanted to do and we said Muay Thai.  He smiled and said, “Absolutely!”

He took us to eat first because we would be there for hours and wouldn’t have much.  He took us to a seafood restaurant that was cheap and had an English menu and the food was pretty good.  When we were done he told us the messenger was coming.

We got in Tik’s car, and the messenger got in while Tik waited outside.  He handed us our bag and told us to check everything before signing off.  Everything was fine, so we signed the delivery slip, and the messenger rode off on his motorcycle.  

At this point I was worried.  All of the sudden I realized I was in a car with someone I didn’t know, carrying jewelry that was worth some money, and I had no control whatsoever.  I realized I was screwed no matter what, so I waited for what happened next.

Tik got in and took us to kickboxing.

He called ahead and arranged for an escort into the arena through the hecklers, gamblers, and potential pickpockets.  He arranged ringside seats.  We paid for them, but he took care of the safety and details.  This was a huge load off our shoulders to not have to worry about our safety.

Kickboxing was awesome and brutal and I loved it for 3 hours.  Tik came and picked us up, took us to the hotel and picked us up at 5:30 AM to get us to the airport just as planned.

The day was so crazy.  We went from being lost tourists to winding up with a personal chauffeur for half a day.

Better than all of this though was one thing: It was a scam!

Read on for the details…

(more…)

It has been a while since I wrote.  I was kind of waiting for something to happen to write about.  Things did happen, but I was lazy and have since forgotten a lot of them.

So lets talk about penis.

I’m not going to give you all the wonderful and varied ways to say penis, you can do that yourself.  It’ll make you smile, promise.

I think a lot of people have seen pictures circulating the internet of giant wooden penises.  There is usually a caption to go with it that argues that the Japanese are insane.

Sure, having festivals and giant wooden penises as the focal point is arguably insane.  However, traveling for around an hour with a hangover, no shower, and being on the verge of crapping your pants at the thought of a 2 meter penis makes me more insane.

I was in the company of about 9 million other foreigners who were either hungover, hadn’t stopped drinking, or were upset that they had already burned a few hours of daylight not drinking (At 10AM no less).

I’ve never seen so many foreigners.  They were unbearably annoying.  I know I am the same way, but there was that added element of wooden penises that just brought out the best in everyone.

When we got off the train, we just started following the herd of people to the penis while we saw the other foreigners run the other way, to a liquor store.  We weren’t sure exactly where the penises were, but eventually we passed a couple of foreigners who caught us off guard.

Her tone of voice was so friendly and casual, it was like she was saying, “Hey guys, what’s up?”

What she really said was, “The big penis is up there.”

This little sentence sticks out as one of the most helpfully awkward bits of help I have ever received.  I can honestly say that this will probably be the first and last time I actively seek a huge penis, but it really warmed my heart to know that someone was there to point me in the right direction.

I have taken pictures of the penis and the activities, but it basically broke down like this.  There was a huge 2 meter penis, and many smaller penises for public enjoyment.  A parade started staring those penises and free sake.  The parade went to another shrine where all sorts of festival type activities were going on.  You could eat food from vendors, most of which was penis shaped, play little games, and go to the temple pray, and write your prayer on a little board with a penis.

We even saw a taiko demonstration.  Taiko is the traditional drumming.  It doesn’t sound interesting or special, but it is a really great experience.  The drums are so loud and powerful that they shake you.  The music is very strong and good, even though it involves only drums and maybe a flute.  The drummers incorporate a tremendous amount of skill in being perfectly in synch as well as dressing up their drumming with choreographed flourishes.

Very cool.

Anyway, it was a long beautiful penis filled day, but Megan and I were tired, so we left pretty early to come home and relax and let the day’s events of penis day settle in our minds.

(more…)

I couldn’t remember what I wanted to blog about the past few days.  I knew I wanted too, but I couldn’t remember what about.  I do remember now, and wish I hadn’t written these three sentences in buildup.

So on Wednesday I was having of laughter because all of my attention was drawn away from the children learning, and instead drawn to how much they erase.  Sure they’re writing in a foreign language, sure they can’t spell, blah blah blah.

I timed them.  In a class of 9, the stopwatch never made it past 10 seconds before an eraser was grabbed and a hushed whisper of, “Machigaita,” was heard (“Oops”).  I was tickled by this and also tore the Japanese Teacher away from teaching as well to be mystified by the children’s erasing regularities.

See, that barely registers on the scale of interesting.

Lets lower the expectations further.

Today I was on a weird coffee high.  For those of you who don’t know, I generally avoid caffeine.  I do this because I suck at sleeping.  Unfortunately avoiding caffeine makes me more prone to it when I do take it in.

When you have to teach 7 classes that are 15 minutes a piece and involve dancing and singing, you need caffeine.  Trust me.

So anyway, I was a bit retarded on the juice and did ridiculous stuff all day.

I told the children to translate sentences like, “I must eat Mt. Fuji,” or, “I must lick a wall,” or, “I must drink a jacket.”  I did this because I couldn’t be normal.  The children were either completely freaked out in a good way, or freaked out in a bad way.  Whichever the case was, I don’t think they’ll forget the grammar.

(more…)

Tonight is our first poker night.  It is an excuse for friends and pizza really.  The Japanese people we invited have no idea what poker is, so we will be playing for small change.

I expect we’ll degenerate into playing Nintendo 64.  Either way, I win.

So bento boxes.  Lots of people have heard of them.  They are the japanese lunch box.  For whatever reason, they have a hold over Americans’ attention enough to have heard about it.  Really though, its just lunch in a box.

To be fair, the Japanese have perfected the lunch box.  Lets start with the physical parts of the bento box.

When it is lunch time, you set your bento box down.  It will be wrapped in a large hankerchief that is tied at the top.  That way all the contents are kept stacked together.

So you untie it and lay the hankerchief down.  It becomes your placemat.  Now in your bento set, you will have whatever utensils you need.  Chopsticks most of the time, but maybe a spoon for curry rice days.

Then you have the bento boxes themselves.  They are small boxes that range in sizes, but are pretty tiny in general.  Most of the time there are two boxes.  One for rice, which is typically on the bottom. On top of that is another bento box that holds all of the goodies.

What makes bento boxes so fascinating is that the topmost box is usually very carefully laid out.  Since the boxes themselves are small, the top box will only contain a bite or two of any one thing.  There may be 5-7 things in this box.

For example, the top box may contain a meatball or two, a small cube of scrambled egg, a salad of some sort, and a small croquet or Japanese pickles.  So there is variety, and where the lack of quantity is, you have a substantial box of rice to power through below.

You might think, “I don’t want my single and delicious meatball touching those icky pickles my mom packed.”  Never fear, it is very common to use cupcake wrappers to isolate each food item from the rest.  So your single bite of meatball or cube egg will taste as though it were the only thing in the box.  Which it nearly is.

When you see real bento boxes you wonder if these Japanese people wake up at 4:30 in the morning to cook their single cube egg, slice their veggies for the single wholesome bite of salad, or otherwise waste their lives on a small lunch.  They don’t.  They do it the way we should.

They simply take leftovers from dinner, put them in the cupcake wrappers, arrange them, and scoop the rice in the bottom one.  If they want a single cube egg that day, then they will make one.

These are bento boxes.  They are really just packed lunches, just prettier.

Now lots of stores and everywhere sells bento lunches.  They are like little sealed trays of food.  They always have a large portion of rice, a main dish, and one or two smaller things that may be pickles or a salad.

Bentos rule the  country here, and I’m glad.  The days of simply grabbing a sandwich or a value meal at fast food are over.

Now I just have to figure out what I’m eating.