Snow White Tan

I had yet another great Saturday on Saturday. Hawaiians Spa Resort was the site of my assault which lasted for over seven hours, and during that time I rampaged the entire place. The smell of chlorine and the humidity slapping me in the face reminded me of childhood water park visits, which were so long ago that I don't actually have any memories of them.

From what I saw I was the only white person in the whole place, a fact made even more obvious by my staggeringly white towering figure. I saw the odd person nudge their friend to point me out and a few children looked at me like there was a 100% chance I would molest them. I'm sure that at first in the pool there was a big space around me, maybe eight feet in all directions. There were large groups of people and kids all over the place (like in the picture) but none of it seemed to come close to me. Although after a while the crowd closed in and things felt normal, we had fun bouncing a beach ball around the pool, hitting children in the face in the process. I deftly headed the ball around as though I possessed some actual football skill and for a moment I felt like a real man, only for a moment though.

The water slides were fun too, there was a nice fast double-seater which has definitely killed someone in the past, it seemed like people were nearly getting tossed out on the corners. Perhaps the reason why they haven't made it safer yet is that they've been paying out shit-loads of money to people suing for broken necks instead.

The content of the this blog will provide absolutely no entertain value whatsoever, but I can't stress enough how good of a day it was. The next move was to the roof, there was a whole different area with lots of big and small jacuzzis that you could lie or sit in and onsen baths and fountains etc etc. By this point the Sun had gone down and the sight of the purple sky, the mountains in silhouette, the architecture surrounding the pools and the lights shining underwater was especially beautiful. After some serious chillin' it was real onsen time. I didn't expect walking around naked with a bunch of old men to be so tranquil. All you could hear was the sound water being pushed around and a few insects. I wondered up some stairs to a door where I heard a man trying really hard to take a crap, maybe he was doing something else but that's what it sounded like. Either way it temporarily broke the mood. I sat down admiring the view once again, not of naked men and boys, but of steam rising from the water and well lit foliage. I looked up at the sky and once again it was beautiful. After another visit to the hot roof jacuzzi orgy we decided enough was enough and after a 7 hour Hawaiians bonanza called it quits.

Only Toddlers on Horses

What a surprise. The blog is left to rot in the wake of me being a busy little bee. I literally forgot this existed until last week, and STILL didn't bother to write anything. Last week I did absolutely no teaching. Nothing. Monday was a day off, Tuesday and Wednesday were wastes of time at a conference, Thursday everything was cancelled and Friday was singing contest day.

The Singing Contest was Serious F*cking Business. The kids had been practising for weeks and weeks and it all sounded amazing. The discipline of the whole thing was exactly what I've come to expect from the insane schooling system in this wonderful nation. Before each class came on stage you could hear them screaming backstage preparing for battle. Levels of intensity and competition ran high all day and at the end I found out the teachers had nothing to do with the training. The students arranged the choir for their two songs and perfected their acts alone. This all happened in scheduled practice time during school hours but the teachers just sat by and said nothing the whole time. During intermissions in the contest, some groups would go outside and practice in the cold, completely of their own free will. I was already impressed by the students commitment to after school activities (which are definitely more important than classes at my school) but now I see them commit fully to something else.

There are cynical words to be said about this. The Japanese system is raising robots who will give themselves fully to their roles in life without a second thought. What seems like an act of free will to go out and practice is actually a result of the system telling them to know their role and carry it out until they actually die. But if it produces kids who can play piano and sing as well as my guys can then I'm happy. Besides the whole thing ended with the "Attraction" segment where everyone went crazy waving their towels over their heads while the third grade boys did a boyband routine. All the teachers singing a song together, including me. I failed it because I only looked at the song an hour before doing it but I could still hear the cries of "kawai" and "kakui" from the 700 strong audience as a mumbled my way through. After that some of the teachers stripped down to skintight nylon jumpsuits and had a play-fight on stage. That's actually what happened.

Sometimes you're left to just observe what's happening. In these moments I feel the need to analyse and interpret, to wonder about how much of what goes on is just on the surface level and how many people want to completely change the system. But I'm quick to realise that this isn't some research assignment, it's not about trying to explain the contradictions or change anything that seems wrong.