Please MTV, Pimp my Ride!

I got some wheels. 4 of them actually. They are attached to a metal frame and when you blow up gasoline inside of it, it pushes stuff and turns other stuff and then turns the wheels. For you scientific people we call this a "car." My "car" has a place to sit and even a way to see how fast you are going, which is awesome.

I got a Toyota Corolla II and I honestly think its gonna be a great car. The price was excellent and I have faith that it will last me for the few short years that I am over here. The car is a 4 cylinder 1.5 liter manual transmission. I was told that the standard model has a 1.3 liter and I feel like the extra .2 gives it a bit more of a kick. The manual is perfect cause around here in the winter I wouldn't feel safe driving anything but a stick.

I was nervous about driving on the left side of the road but the first time I actually did it I was amazed how easy it is to switch your brain over and think opposite. It isnt even an issue. However sitting in a passenger seat is a totally different story. First time I was in a car here and we made a left turn into the left lane, I thought I was dead.

When I am controlling the car though and sitting on the side closest to the middle divider, it just makes sense.

The body of the car is pretty beat up. My goal is to cover this beast in stickers and paint sweet flames. Actually a whole head of Eddie would be ideal. Oh speaking of that I need help coming up with a cool name. My last car had two names. "The Silver Bullet" and the "Shaggin' Wagon.", both of which it neither deserved. So I need help thinking up a cool name that my new car also doesn't deserve, like "Clean."

The guy I bought it from (Ross) has lived in Japan for 14 years and hes a really cool guy. He works for Japan's Rally Association and does a lot of their translations and organizing. So he know a lot about cars which made me feel good buying it. Plus he was just a cool Auzie with some crazy stories.

Here are some pictures

Its a hatchback, as you can see. I think this is better for being able to haul gear and bikes. We had some problems with the plates because I am dumb and didnt realize that while I had a local parking permit, I didnt have one from the Hawaiian 5-0. It amounted to pretty much a huge inconvenience for Ross (gomen). This in turn meant that I couldn't go down to Asahikawa (our district) to get the registration completed, because in Japan you cannot register a car unless you can prove to the police that you have an actual place to park it. Like, you need to bring in an actual Topo map that's been approved to show where you car will reside when you aren't using it. Amazing.

People tell me that this is an important part of the car.

Look! Its a 1993 and its only got 76K (k!) which is like 47,000 miles.

The speed limit in Japan on non-freeways is 50k, which is like 31 miles per hour.

I think I am going to need a radar detector.

Isn't she a beaut?

I will let you know once I get it pimped out, cause I don't think MTV is coming over. My plan to convert my laptop into a sweet mp3 server died when the laptop decided to not boot. That's too bad. I was really looking forward to making a sweet project out of it.

So yeah I forgot how freeing it is to have a car. I was driving down to the 7-11 and I was like "...wait a minute, I can go ANYWHERE!" ...I still just went to 7-11 but still the realization that I can now go visit my friends and go climbing and hiking and go to Sapps town whenever I feel like it has just started to sink in. w00t!

In other news I also got my own set of bogu. Jesse has been spending a bit too much money, yes. But shhh dont tell him that. He's very enamored with the whole process and I think you might hurt his feelings if you remind him that money isn't cheap.

I got to wear my own set of armor for the first time and it was totally awesome. Training with the kids was better than ever and I feel if I can keep it up (sadly because I go to the islands now, I lose two practices a month) I might not get totally pumelled in the adult tournament in June. Actually on second though never mind. I am going to get totally pumelled. At least I will die with my boots on....er, armor.

The Spread:
Men (helmet)
Tare (gauntlets)
Do (chest guard)
Tare (waist guard)
Carrying bag, Zekken (name tag) and 3 tenagui (head towels)

When I went to get the armor I said that I was a student of my Sensei, Sakamoto, and they gave me a huge discount. Also something funny happened. The girl at the store was like "which set of armor do you want?" I asked for the second-from-cheapest one and then I tried on the gloves. They totally didnt fit at all. So she kept coming back with all these different gloves and obviously none of them fit my huge mits that I call "hands". So finally she was like "well, just try these on for size" and went and got these gloves that cost like the price of a set of bogu. She said "just try these on for size". So I did and they actually fit. She said that she would order my size in the other kind (the kind that went with my cheap armor set). I said that was fine but when I went to pick up my new set, she said that they couldn't find any other gloves in my size, so they just gave me the ones that actually fit me. I was not expecting that! For every time that I am treated poorly over here, there are 10 times that I am treated amazingly well. So that was really cool of them and they didn't have to do that at all.

Cranium Holder.

These are the wicked nice gloves. That's my first name stiched on the mit.

Here is Sakamoto Sensei and I :) After she realized that my camera was digital, she wanted to take like 3 or 4 more pictures doing sweet poses with the shinai. I thought that was hilarious. Sakamoto Sensei has been an amazing teacher and really, for me, it's a complete dream come true to be here in Japan studying under someone like her. I can remember sitting in the dojo at the IKS thinking that someday, I will be doing exactly what I am doing right now. And now here I am. I dont know how else to say it. It's amazing and the most incredible blessing.

I feel like I should apologize for my awful haircut. Don't make fun of it, or I will totally hit you with a bamboo sword. Actually, that's Sakamoto Sensei's job. Watch out, it hurts.

Well, I would write more but I have to get back to my rousing Saturday night!*


*not actually rousing