Japan: An Announcement

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It's official--I am moving to Japan to continue working as an English teacher there.  I am set to move in late June, and will update more in the future.

I regret not being able to update my blog more thoroughly during my time here, but luckily I am moving to an environment where WiFi is easier to obtain and my electronics are less likely to be robbed.  I will likely share all my nostalgic stories then, and may even be able to create cartoons again.

:)

Please note, I will hereby publish all backdated entries.

New Years' Two

Just to prove I'm not a total killjoy, I went out to join the enormous Songkran party tonight.

It's basically what I told you.  The populace throws water and mud on you.  Kids (and adults) run around with super-soakers and spray you with them.  They carry them on trains, in stores, etc.  Boys use the mud as an excuse to touch girls on the face and shoot water on their breasts...I guess girls do the same thing, but damned if I'm masculine enough to know the answer to that one.

An element of sadism enters the picture when folks throw ice water on you, jam mud into your face with such force that you see stars, or rub your face with a block of ice instead of mud (and you can imagine where their hands have been). 

It's just like war!!

In the streets

Coming Soon: Songkran

Shit that would not fly in America I

Shit that would not fly in America II

Shit that would not fly in America III (yes, this is in the building)

The teeming masses shutting down the streets again

Walking through Saladaeng

Not That Tame

Why is it that whenever I visit Bangkok, it's shut down?  Crazy city.

Happy New Years!

It's New Year's you say?

In countries that depend on the rainy season to grow rice, it apparently is.  Though I am working 7 days out of the week to afford to go to Japan, I have been granted a week off for the Khmer New Years' celebration.

I have decided to spend part of this week in Thailand, picking up a few necessities.  That's what expats do in Cambodia--they go to Thailand when they want useful Western goods, like clothes that fit, McDonalds, air-conditioning, advanced paperback books, medical treatment, or pretty much anything else beyond the creature comforts of Swensen's ice cream and Ciprofloxacin.

Needing at least 3 of the 5 items listed above, I got on the quickest night bus to the border (I've had to add many pages to my passport solely because I've done this so often that the visa pages are all used up).

For whatever reason, despite the fact that the New Year is a lunar holiday celebrated by all people in the rice-dependent Southeast Asian region, I somehow forgot that Thailand is also celebrating New Year's.

It's a lot different over here--literally the entire city becomes some sort of outdoor orgy of water and mud and silly drunk people flinging themselves and each other into it.

Hooray!! What fun!, you are thinking.

While this is normally the sort of thing I get into, it's awfully annoying having to hide from water-and-mud snipers behind cars when you're carrying 20 shopping bags and didn't bring any spare clothes to get wet and muddy.  This is probably the reason they no longer do this in Cambodia--all the foreigners complained!

The nice thing, though, is that there are all kinds of "Songkran sales", where everything is 30-50% off for the New Year.  Man, did I luck out on that one.  Also worth noting that the general populace seemed happy, affirming, and high-spirited for once in the entire  50-or-so times I've visited this place.  (Generally, the city is quite stuck-up and inhuman, even degrading, if I may be so bold as to cast a judgement Bangkokward.)  I don't think I've ever been happier to be here.