I apologize for my silence on the blog.  The hours for my job are absolutely insane and I have a second (third?) job of rehabilitating my knee. My knee is regaining its range of motion degree by degree  My primary physical therapist is a guy called “Cook,” and his regimen is intense, effective, and the opposite of gentle.

I was lucky enough to work near an orthopedic clinic famous for working on professional baseball players.  So they don’t mess around.

Another favorite is the massive machine they call “The Biodex.”

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Working through the night and resting by day, one of Matt’s occasional sleeping places as a Net Cafe Refugee was the Den-en-Toshi subway line, which he’d ride back and forth throughout the morning. The following time lapse shows just how one of these trips would go, in the kind of fascinating style that we have come to expect from Bryan Gomez and Kevin Land, crew extraordinaire.

This is the second in a series of three time-lapses, which in many ways symbolize the experience each of us had in Tokyo. The first showcased the dreary but industrious Tsukiji Fish Market– an early morning scene characterized by bustle, irritability, and an overdose of caffeine (hallmarks of my life in Kanagawa). Stay tuned for our forthcoming, third installment– Brian’s neon orgy in Shibuya.

In episode 206 we saw what life was like on when you’re about as broke as is possible in Tokyo.  The experience of day to day life inside the cafe was just so surreal we had to go a bit deeper into it – and with that we present Internet Cafe Living.  A firsthand account of just what its like to try and make it in one of these places.

We hope you enjoy it. We know Matt sure did.

I know I blogged about this a bit while it was happening, but I slowly descended into a sort of sleep-deprived mania madness, and I lost the ability to compose coherent posts about it.  So now I can explain in a little more depth and lucidity…

The Backstory: We were so broke in Tokyo, mid-April, 2.5 weeks away from departure, and one of our monthly leases was up.  Renewal would be $500 we didn’t have.  We were already living in poverty in one of the world’s most expensive cities, so why not go one extra step…Manga Kissas, Internet Cafes: Tokyo is peppered with internet/manga cafes, a cross between an internet cafe, a manga library, and a hotel that rented cubicles instead of rooms.  You can rent by the hour or stay overnight.  They seem to be used for 4 things, as far as I can tell. 

First, people who have missed the last train home and who don’t want to pay the monstrous cab fees to go home.  They’re either Japanese salarymen, stumbling out of a client dinner, or those damned denizens of Tokyo with money to enjoy the nightlife.  In the cafes, you could hear them throwing up or snoring drunkenly. 

Second, highschoolers who want some private time – they live with their parents and they can’t go to love hotels.  In the cafes, you could hear them…well, you could hear them.

Third, manga lovers and gamers. I was actually surprised that people paid money to go to a manga library and read manga.  What kind of manga people read or internet sites they browsed is anyone’s guess, although, in the cafes, they sometimes sounded like the highschoolers.

Fourth, the internet cafe refugees or “cyberhomeless” – people who can’t afford the outrageously expensive housing in Japan but who have enough money to afford a $10/night roof.  They rove from cafe to cafe, catching 7 hours of peace at night to recharge for a part-time job during the day.  It was in this fourth class that I fell.  So instead of paying $500 for another 19 days, I’d pay around $12/night for sleep in Tokyo’s central districts.  I’d save money on transit, because I wouldn’t need to travel out to exciting Kanagawa.  I’d also still be tutoring, so I’d be making a decent amount of money.  The cafes had free coffee and juice, and I’d enjoy internet speed we only wet-dreamed about back at our guesthouse.  I’d sleep in the cafes when I could and then just huddle up on one of the trains and sleep as it wound its way around the city.  So I packed my bags…

and set out with 4000Yen, about $45, to see where it would all take me…

With finances reaching the critical disaster zone Matt must forgo his spot in the guesthouse and find a home on the streets of Tokyo to save money.

Okay.  So, it has been a while.  More than three weeks, to be precise, which is exactly two weeks longer than it should have been since this episode was released.  A lot happened this month, from obvious hardware failures, to marauding ex-girlfriends, to rheumatoid arthritis, to hilariously weak immune systems, but the simple fact of the matter is that once upon a time none of this ever would have phased me.

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Well, it’s probably not hard to guess that I didn’t check out the whirling lights of Club Eden or gallivant about with Tom and the Australian showgirls.  I’m still in recovery, and I’m playing it cautious.  One tumble down and my ligament rips free of its fledgling holds within my knee, and I will know pain unimaginable.  No fucking thank you.

However, I have started a new physical therapy regimen…This kind of therapy was mistakenly translated as “radioactive therapy,” which was an unfortunate mistake.  I had a brief fantasy that it was causing my knee to hyper-regenerate, but instead it’s just pulsing sound waves to encourage circulation…and hopefully hyper-regeneration.

Please, oh gods of orthopedic healing, please heal my knee!  Also, it would be great if you could speedily remove the all the hideous bruises before I’m forced to wear shorts.  Go ahead, keep reading, you know you want to see a picture…

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Big surprise: I’m not teaching English.  Hordes of screaming children would have overrun me and my feeble attempts to order them around or herd them with my crutches.  So I had to find a new job that didn’t involve jeopardizing my knee.

A couple weeks ago, a strange opportunity popped up in the classifieds section: an editing job helping rewrite translated text for an MMORPG (like World of Warcraft) being imported to the US from Korea.  Flexing my nerd muscles, I threw together a creative cover letter that landed me an interview.  I got the job on Monday and started Monday evening. 

One of my first tasks was learning the game, so I spent some time playing the Korean version alongside my new boss.  Much less exciting than it sounds – it really just amounted to a lot, “oh what’s this say?” “where should we go now?” “what is that we’re buying?”  But it’s definitely a gaming environment.  On my first day, my officemates challenged me to a Starcraft match over lunch to see who would go buy ice-cream (unfortunately, we had a deadline, so I had to postpone the inevitable ass-kicking that would ensue).  Also, when I left the office on Friday at 7pm, 2 guys were questing together on another MMORPG.  It felt like a caricature of a Korea, in office format.  It should make for an interesting 7 weeks…

Let’s not confuse ourselves.  I would change the soiled underwear of every kindergartner at Brian’s and Rob’s school if it would give me my knee back.  If anything would undo the financial damage, physical pain, and the instability my knee will have for the rest of my life, I would do it.  This job is a small luxury amidst disaster, maybe like winning a poker game during a shipwreck.

And actually, one unacknowledged tragedy of my knee dislocation is that I don’t get to teach alongside Brian and Rob.  I mean, I’m not shedding tears here, given Brian’s horror stories, BUT if there was anyone among us who had a prayer of enjoying that job, it was me.  I LOVE kids, and anyone who has seen me around them would quickly conclude I simply never grew up.  I love to play with them, I love making them laugh, and when they don’t listen, I can just pick 2 or 3 of them up and relocate them, which usually gets all the children’s attention.  Unfortunately, I never even got to try.  So instead of playing roller coaster with kindergarteners, I’m leveling my Korean character…

Note: If you’re in Seoul and have a free bed or couch, let me know.  One of these days, the wrath of Rob or Brian might just spill over…

Today I had my MRI and my follow-up consultation, which was rescheduled from next Tuesday.  The MRI was…loud.  I’ve had an MRI before, and it involved me putting on earplugs and headphones and listening to Mozart for 30 minutes.  I thought this would be somewhat similar…instead, I put on headphones, started to drift to a nap, then was jarred awake by the awful beeps and clangs that tore right through the sad excuse for noise reducers that cupped my ears. 

But no matter – the verdict was that I don’t need surgery, in the doctor’s opinion.  A hard cast for 2 weeks, followed by physical therapy, would be enough to restore full range of motion.  100% stability for my knee is, alas, a fiction – the ligaments are simply too worn at this point.  Perhaps if my kneecap strays again, reconstructive surgery will be necessary, but for the moment, exercise and safety are my closest allies.

Matt, version 3, here to stay for 2 more weeks.  I know it looks like I’m attempting a pose, but I’m actually trying to draw attention to the hard cast that now encases my leg.  Also, I’ve installed padding on my crutches, because it hurt to haul myself around by pressing my palms on hard, merciless plastic. Oh, and I’m wearing a Jet Set Zero T-shirt, but don’t let that think the shirt leads to crutches.

If you’re in Seoul and want to sign my cast, shoot me an email: Matt[at]jetsetzero.tv.  This sucker better not be bare white when they remove it in 2 weeks…

Well my Tuesday meeting with the doctor was a little anticlimactic.  More poking and prodding.  A failed attempt to drain more blood from the knee capsule (apparently the remaining blood is clotted).  Another costly cast.  A bungled attempt to x-ray it again.  An MRI scheduled for Thursday, to determine the extent of tissue damage, and a consultation next Tuesday.  So I guess I’ll have to wait for answers. 

In the meantime, I got crutches to hobble around and my new cast lets me wear a shoe.  While I am mobile, I’m unbelievably slow, especially climbing and descending stairs.  My room is 4 floors from the street; the kitchen is 2 floors from my room.  I’m also skeptical that my crutches will fully support my weight for a long time – I am a little heavier than the average Korean.

The English support was definitely better but not enough that I felt completely comfortable.  It’s starting to approach that threshold between amusement and alarm.  I know these posts are long, so here’s a dialogue version of how today went down…

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Well our time in Seoul has taken an unexpected turn…right to the Korean University hospital.  Basically, Saturday night I fell and dislocated my right knee – the knee cap decided to adjust itself all the way to the right, sticking straight to the right side.  The pain was excruciating, and I had a wonderful time popping it back into place.  I promise I’ll have another post about that story, but here I want to focus on our 6-hour stint in a hospital with no English-speaking staff.  It’s a very long story, so you’ll have to bear with me.

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