At long last and after nearly 24 hours in transit (or maybe it was 29 hours? I lost count about 20 hours ago), I finally touched down. But where am I? That is a good question. It is a question that has plagued me since I wrote the first update back in October. I am sitting in a nice posh hotel room in Athens, Greece. I came here before starting the rest of a family trip around the Black Sea/Mediterranean area of Europe. The hotel room I’m in is quite nice and not what I expected from Greece. However that said, I expected Greece to be a little bit of a dump, but I was plesantly surprised.

I arrived late last night at around 3am due to a faulty electrical terminal somewhere inside of my plane. The flight was supposed to go from Tokyo to Rome to Athens with only a 35 minute layover in Rome. However after a 5 hour wait in Rome, the plane was ready to go. Needless to say, I was not impressed. When I arrived at the airport, I was greeted by a nice older man who ran a taxi company which I had pre-paid for. Not only was I surprised by the fact that he had a bottle of water and some candies waiting for me in the back of the taxi, but the fact that he waited five extra hours for me. Now that is what I call service!

After a fourty minute drive through Athens (which is a beautiful city by the way, even at night), we finally arrived at the hotel. Not only was it beautiful but everyone was incredibly friendly, the kind of friendliness that you would only find in a four-diamond hotel. Thank god I got a good deal on the rooms price!  I lugged my bags into my room, swore to myself as I couldn’t find the light switches, and crashed onto the bed for the next several hours, but jet-lag mixed with nearly 30 hours in transit didn’t make for a restful sleep.  Oh well, it didn’t matter anyways since I was on vacation!

The next morning came all too quickly and after fiddling around with a button on the wall, I discovered that out of nearly ninety available channels, nearly a dozen of them were adult-oriented.  Oh well, when in Rome… or Greece as the case may be.  I took a shower in a very ornately decorated bathroom, shaved up and realized I had forgot my cologne back in Japan.  Crap… Now my first order of business is to procure a new bottle of something that doesn’t smell like my grandmother.  That proved harder than I had anticipated.  Oh well, it’s a new day, a new adventure and I’m ready to take on anything… as I said, I’m on vacation!

I typed all this out for a Japanese forum that I frequent, so I’ll do nothing more than past what I posted there.

“Just wondering how many folks here have been in actually hand-to-hand confrontations in one way or another with some of the J-folks around here.  The first ‘encounter’ I had was not directed at me in any shape, way or form.  It was my third day in Japan and my buddies took me for dinner to a little Mexican place up Dogenzaka in Shibuya.  There was a young and well-built J-dude outside in the street (or alley, for those of you who actually visit Dogenzaka).  He was swinging at anyone and everyone not Japanese.  Eventually he picked a fight with a tall skinny white dude with a brush-cut (whom I would only assume was one of the military folks stationed here).  The J-dude swung a few and finally nailed the tall guy in the back of the neck.  From there, the white guy swung around, nailing the drunk gent in the solar plexes, he promptly went down, BUT where it gets bad is the white fuck curb-stomped the Japanese guy and then took off running.

My buddy who I was with rushed outside to see if he could help.  The ambulance came, covered him with a white sheet and took him away while the Shibuya police finally arrived (they came AFTER the ambulance).  From what my pal told me, his eyes were right fucked and was most likely dead when they took him away.  Welcome to Japan…. here’s your pale-faced murderer.

The next time I had any physical issues was in a 7-11 at Futako Tamakawa station.  I was inside and a small group of school-boys kept on picking on this one kid who looked the part of a typical geek (he was with a friend).  The kid kept on being pushed further and further to the back of the store (I was looking to buy some milk at the time) so I was watching this happen).  The group of kids were yelling and finally started throwing things at the two.  I distinctly heard the term otaku quite a few times so I felt for the main kid getting picked up.  At last, one of the kids got closer and gave a few sucker punch shots to the kid, which is where I lost my tempter.

I’m SURE I would have been thrown-the-fuck out of Japan if the police were around, but I wasn’t thinking about that at the time.  I pulled each of the kids away by the back of their hair (sorry, I’m a cheap fighter) and threw them behind me (there were three before the ‘ring leader).  I finally put my arm around his neck and pulled him right to the ground screaming at him in a fit of anger and rage that he would do shit to this poor kid in the middle of a 7-11 with women and their kids trying to by stuff.

I swore/screamed at the top of my lungs for a good minute before I finally made a fist above his face and let it hang there.  It was then that I realized that if I struck the kid, I was going to get into some serious shit so I snarled (as much as a fat man can snarl at least) at him and released my grip on his neck.  I walked up to the kids at the back who were still sorta cowering there, asked ‘genki desuka?’ (yea, I didn’t know exactly what to say, let alone know how to say ‘daijobu desuka?’).  One said Genki and they took off out of the store.

In retrospect, I’m not sure if what I did to help the two kids was right or not, CONSIDERING I didn’t know what was going on.  For all I know, the two kids could have been peeping into a girls locker room and what-not.  Would I do it again?  Well, now that I can listen to people and understand more Japanese, I’d have to say yes if I could figure out why the kids were doing that.

Oh the way out, I bought my milk and a can of Chu-Hi, kept apologizing by saying “sumimasen” (I now know that was TOTALLY not the right word to use) to everyone that was in there and apologized profusely as best I could to the mother and her little girl that were standing by the door.  I never saw those kids again, but apparently they went to the Futako Tamakawa international school (although they were all Japanese).

HOW ABOUT YOU?”

I realized I’m such an ass… I completely forgot about my good buddy Larry Campbell’s passing anniversary. On November 24, 2005, Larry Campbell passed away in Tama Plaza from cancer. Let all of us readers take a moment or two and remember him for the amazing man he was.

We all love you Larry and still think of you.

Someone on one of my past videos to take a chance and drive up/down some of the West areas of Saskatoon. Well I took their advice and did it, showing some of the not-so-bad streets as well as some of the skummiest streets around. Enjoy!

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And Part 2 as well!

Since I’m a little incapacitated, I figured it’s a good time to do some driving as it doesn’t require a heck of a lot of walking! My buddy also recently went out to Pike Lake which is located just South of Saskatoon. Since I’m back in Canada for the next while I decided to head out and say hi.

And after a quick trip to see the old Scout Camp (which is featured above), I finally made my way to Pike Lake.