Apparently I have a thing for frogs. I've posted about them here and also here.
I made a recording of frog noises back during rainy season in Gyoda, but never got around to posting it. It's a noise that I find strangely compelling. Perhaps, along with the sound of squealing cicadas and the smell of damp tatami, it serves as a reminder of Japanese days past.
That recording you may find here: Gyoda Frogs
Contrast it with a recording I just made a few days ago in Massachusetts. These frogs are much bigger than their rice field compatriots, making them much easier to see. Don't let recording levels fool you; they actually manage to be quieter than the frogs in Japan.
Enjoy the natural ambiance here: Massachusetts Frogs Recording
Now if only I can get close enough for an adequate recording of the rather-elusive "peeper frogs."
UPDATE: I got a recording of the peepers! Oh joy, right?
Check them out: Massachusetts Peepers Recording
My family house used to have two enormous silver maple trees in the front yard. One of them had to be taken down a few years ago and my father had the usable wood milled. The color and grain of the wood is very striking, and I decided to make my follow-up to the Square-1 design out of this sugar maple. Not only would these two end tables serve as a prototype for the next iteration of the "Square" series, it would also be an homage to my childhood home.
I've made two tables, unofficially dubbed "river" and "tree" due to the color patterns. They're actually not the easiest things to photograph with a digital camera; there is so much pink and red in the wood that the whole photo tends to get tinted pink or orange. In trying to compensate for that hue, photo-editing software tends to wash out the colors of the photo. The result is such that the darker parts of the wood are a bit pinker in reality, and the lighter parts of the wood are a bit more white. I may be an amateur designer, but I'm no photographer!
I do love the color and grain of the Square-2 design, but I must admit that Square-1 was easier to work on; Black paint covers almost any mistake!
One of my favorite things to laugh about in Japan was the legendary status of the Tanuki. They're a fun little critter that is often described as a raccoon, though it's an entirely different animal. I've only seen one in real life at a zoo, and I wouldn't really know how to describe it other than "smaller and pointier" than a raccoon.
Anyway, legend has it (according to two Japanese people I know, so obviously it must be true what I say) that Tanuki are notoriously crafty. Certainly, Japanese folk tales featuring Tanuki do tend to accentuate the naughty things they do. Western raccoons are fairly naughty in real life, so I can see why Tanuki might be translated the way they are.
But I digress. The real reason I'm posting is to talk about Tanuki balls. I remember the first time I noticed them. I was standing outside a restaurant and noticed a statue of this weird owl/bear looking creature. I asked what it was, and I was told it was a Tanuki. I also asked why he had enormous testicles. Accordingly, I was told that his balls represented his enormous luck, and any restaurant that has a Tanuki statue was rewarded with good luck. So if you're ever in Japan, you'll see a lot of these guys around. You might even see some in the States.
Tanuki balls represent good luck with money (or so I've been told). It's interesting to note that very long hanging earlobes also represent good luck, I believe also with money. As such, you see a lot of Buddha/Hotei statues with very very long earlobes. I suppose we may further assume that hanging body parts in general provide good luck.
Recently I've been using my spare time creatively and (I like to think) productively. As one of my many interests is interior design, I took the time to brush up on AutoCAD and make some designs. Not only does this help me regain long-unused skills, but it results in an actual physical object! Quite the accomplishment, these days.
In any case, here is the result, dubbed "Square-1" and first in a series. It's the very first of its type and pretty much a prototype, but I gave it as a gift and it is serving quite well in its capacity as a coffee table. Have a look:
During the last few days of "Operation Bai Bai" in Japan I took the ridiculously-fast Nozomi Shinkansen (bullet train) out to Hiroshima for a day and a half. It was something I'd always wanted to do but had never gotten around to.
Hiroshima itself isn't much; all there really is to do is the Peace Park and other Atomic-bomb related stuff. Miyajima, with included Itsukushima Jima and Daisho-in temple was where it was at.
Click on the rugged picture of yours-truly for the gallery.
I love this season in Japan. It's just before rainy season, so the sky hasn't started dumping on us yet, the weather isn't ridiculously hot yet, and the rice season has just begun. The rice season always starts by flooding the fields and planting little ricelings (that's what Ilike to call them). What this means is that on a cool night riding my bike past the fields I am sole witness to thousands and thousands of frogs chirping their minuscule lungs out trying to find a mate. The sound is somewhat akin to "peepers" back home, but they frogs are less afraid than their cousins back home and will keep chirping even if you're nearby. Sometimes it's a wonderful experience just to stand there next to a field and listen to their drone. I've never actually seen one of the little guys until last night. Bonus: two of them!
Our final day saw beautiful blue skies and a village from the past. We headed from Iriomote back to Ishigaki, the main point for all ferry trips down in the Yaeyama region. From there we hopped off, bought tickets, and hopped right back on the same ferry for the ten-minute ride to Taketomi. At its widest point Taketomi is only nine kilometers across, and it's also one of the most popular tourist destinations in the area. You can imagine it can get very very crowded, but thankfully we were able to avoid most crowds because of when we visited.
To my dismay Taketomi's swimming/snorkeling isn't stellar, though the place makes up for it with other things to look at. The beauty of the central town is the main attraction on the island, and for good reason. The place we stayed at was no exception to the rule that residences on the island should use the traditional red-tile roofs, and the couple that ran it were fabulous. We checked out the tiny island a bit and did a tiny bit of swimming, then came back for dinner. There we met some other guests, with whom we later watched the sunset and went looking for fireflies. We found none of the latter, but we did get serenaded by the owner while we drank copious amounts of the local liquor.
Our second day took us to the "brooding jungle isle to the west," Iriomote. Even though I couldn't help but mock my guidebook's description, it really does brood. While Ishigaki had been colored grey by the overcast sky, Iriomote was covered with threatening rain clouds. The first sight of it gives the distinct impression of going to Jurassic Park or the island in LOST.
Iriomote has an area roughly the same size as Ishigaki, meaning it's a bit less than 300 square kilometers. Though that means it's fairly big, it has a population of 2200 and has only one main road. I can't tell you how many times I thought to myself "is this really Japan?" while we were there. The jungle is so widespread and the settlements obviously not, it reminded me of the mountain forest preserve I stayed at in Costa Rica. For this I fell in love with Iriomote.
We stayed at the Japanese equivalent of a bed and breakfast, where we met the French Bulldog "Guts." He was adorable in an ugly way, and some problem with his nose caused him to snort like a pig while he breathed. It was like having a furry little pig around all the time. In the morning we took a kayak/hiking trip to the tallest waterfall in Okinawa, Pinaisaira. Unlike my companion and everyone else who was there, I was determined to swim at just about anywhere I could, so naturally I swam at the foot of the fall. Here we had our first encounter with a very weird creature, something that looks straight out of prehistoric times. It's a half-frog, half-fish thing, and skips across the water on little leg/fins. I swear it's a perfect illustration of the halfway point in evolution between water dwellers and land creatures.
Before we left the island on the next day we rented motor scooters, which was perhaps one of the coolest things I've ever done. I can't express to you the giddy idiotic grin that crossed my face the minute I gunned the (miniscule) engine. In the short time we had the scooters we made good use of them, hoofing it all the way to the northern ending point of the main road. Can you believe it? A "main road" that just stops at a dead end, cut off by mountain jungle.
Near there was where we swam out to a tiny deserted island and explored some natural sea-carved caves.
This past week I spent a few days down in the southernmost part of Japan, a few small islands that are part of Okinawa known as the Yaeyama Islands. I'll be separating my accounts of trip by island. So to start we first stopped at Ishigaki, which is the main island of the group merited by the fact that it actually has an airport and a smattering of roads.
As a matter of fact, for the majority of the trip we found ourselves traveling beneath lead sky; the rainy season has just begun in Okinawa, and though we saw very little rain, the dark sky made for some less-than-brilliant photographs.
Ishigaki is seeing a major population influx, mostly in the form of retirees. New construction was everywhere, though for a while we thought it was buildings going to disrepair. Since not only during a slow season but also during the week, the place seemed desterted; it was great! We rented a small car and set about exploring the island. We took pictures for a very enthusiastic couple, found hairy (yes, really hairy!) crabs at low tide, ate Okinawan Taco Rice, and got sunburned. This is unfortunately where an unwanted guest, a hair of some sort inside my camera lens, made its first appearance. You'll see it featured throughout, much to my dismay.
I know I've been absent for quite a long time, but I've been insanely busy. Good friends have been both leaving and visiting, so I've had very little time for things like posting here. Well, the madness is over with nothing but (mostly) empty space as a replacement. I expect to be posting more now that I have some free time on my hands.
For now, make sure to check out a sampling of the pictures I took while my good friend Jansen was visiting. I've also figured out a way to easily add captions to my pictures, so be sure not to miss those!
As always, click on the thumbnail below for the full gallery.
Pete and I went to Korea for a short trip. It's very cheap (under $400) for airfare and hotel for 3 nights, and it's quite a short flight. Why not, right?
We arrived at night and had a hell of a time finding the hotel. The reviews of the hotel online weren't exaggerating when they said it's hard to find. We ended up being in the complete wrong part of the area, though luckily some weird guy on a bike decided he wanted to practice English with us and helped us find the place. Admittedly, there was a little suspicion as to why he was being so nice to us...
The second day we did a lot of palace/temple sightseeing. When in asia...
One palace you can only enter via a guided tour. Unfortunately, the English tours are rather few and far between, so Pete's stroke of genius was to take a Japanese-language tour. It worked beautifully. Coincidentally, the day on which we took the tour also happened to be Independence Day in Korea...Independence from Japan. So during the tour, at one point our tour was waiting for another all-Korean tour to exit a certain area of the palace so we could fit in. The tension was rather tangible, as many of the Koreans exiting gave the Japanese group the evil eye. In true Japanese fashion, however, our group seemed completely clueless.
The next day we did more palace touring, this time in the rain.
Highlights: Check out the colorful painting that is clearly different than Japanese-style historical architecture. Also of note is the bowl of silkworm larvae that is supposedly a "popular street snack." I can't see how it can be popular, as I ate one and it was...unpalatable, to say the least. Without further ado, here you go!
I know it's been a very long time since I've posted anything here. Sorry for that, by my life has been rather chock-full of business and crappiness (in equal measure, as a matter of fact).
To tide you over for now, here's a photo gallery of my trip back home to Massachusetts. Enjoy.
Last weekend I went to Hong Kong. It was a great trip, but oddly I found myself missing Japan intensely. I wonder how I'll fare when I finally have to leave Japan for good.
Highlights of Hong Kong:
- It was warm
- I got a pretty cool fake watch
- You can haggle for almost anything
- Lots of green in the middle of a dense city
- Lots of green outside the city
Low(?)lights of Hong Kong:
- Cantonese food is horrific
- Loud, dirty
- It was hot
- The foreigners in Hong Kong are by and large a much more irritating presence than in Japan (even Roppongi)
- 90% of the "culture" in Hong Kong centers around shopping
It was a great city, but it was refreshing for me to know what I really feel about Japan, knowing how much I wanted to come back to it. I don't think I'd really want to live in Hong Kong.
My friend was a most excellent host, and thanks to him I got to see and do a lot of things I'm sure most visitors don't do. It was also very interesting to see the dualities of the city through him.
Click on the thumbnail below for the gallery.
This past weekend, my school had its biggest-yet 文化祭 (bunkasai: culture festival). The students spent months preparing some very elaborate scenes as bases for their shops/gamerooms/etc. The results were quite impressive, something pictures can't really express. But I'm gonna show you pictures anyway.
Note: The people pictured in the thumbnail are not in costume. They dress like that normally for "fun." You know the drill. Click the thumbnail for the full gallery.
We had a small "League Retreat" over the past weekend. It was a great time; great weather, great fun, etc. Of course we can't really call it camping at all, because though we were at a camp ground, the typical Japanese "campers" usually end up in a cottage with full electricity, included futons, and often air conditioning and heating. Hardly roughing it.
Anyway, below is the thumbnail to the gallery. You know the drill. The pictures of the stream you see are pictures of the coldest water on Earth. I know because we went swimming in it. We coulda given the Polar Bear Club a run for their money I think. I wonder if the PBC members squeal like girls as much as we did...
Please also bear in mind that I have a pretty strict filesize limitation set on my pictures, so they can sometimes have some pretty nasty compression artifacts. Sorry about that.
Finally, credit for many of the pictures goes to Will, who is far more energetic about taking pictures than I am. You can find his own version of the gallery here.
Quite a few people in Japan have 趣味(shumi: hobbies). Often, these people are fanatically dedicated to their hobbies, and are quite skillful. We've taken up a hobby: golf! We don't have the dedication or the skill, but it sure is satisfying to smash four-hundred-something little white balls into green oblivion.
The most interesting part is where we golf. As Japan has little space to dedicate to such a space-hungry pastime, most people go to driving ranges, which are weird netted-in affairs. Inside, it looks like a normal driving range, except for the fact that the balls come to you.
Allow me to demonstrate (click on the thumbnail for a short video clip).
Coincidentally, this entry also marks the 500-post anniversary of shock-e.com! What that means is that I've been blathering on about things that bear little relevance to the outside world for not a small bit of time. Maybe more than 3 years?!
Sure, there are much more prolific "bloggers" out there, but I prefer to think that people who can write more than that are probably blathering about even less relevant things than myself. Amen.
...of rampant self-indulgence.
It'll give you the chance to:
a) Deride me publicly
b) See for yourself just what Japan has done to my sense of style
c) Gasp at my age
d) Laugh
I took a trip out into the Japanese "countryside" a few weeks ago, but I didn't have space on my server to post the pics. Well my hosting company finally came through, and I have the space to post. Relief.
Included in the gallery (click the thumbnail below as usual) are pictures of 黒部峡谷(Kurobe Kyoukoku: Kurobe Gorge), 立山 (Tateyama), 氷見(Himi), 金沢(Kanazawa), 五箇山(Gokayama), 高山(Takayama), 銚子の滝(Choushinotaki: Choushi Waterfall), and finally 松本(Matsumoto).
Please enjoy!
I don't usually go for Engrish-themed clothing...but yesterday I got one I couldn't pass up.
Click the link below (you may have to scroll down, as the weird part is at the bottom of the picture).
In Chichibu (the mountains that are the only thing worth mention in Saitama) there are plenty of places to get your nature on. I've been there in the past and I went again this year to get away from the oppressive heat and boredom in Gyoda. The pictures are nothing much, especially to those back home who are used to seeing trees and streams every day. You can, however, see a few pictures of me and get a look at how much I've aged in a mere two years since coming here. It's quite remarkable, really ... and kinda shitty.
I bought a shirt the other day (big-time sales here, woohoo!) and received some sort of re-usable bag with it. Whatever.
I was staring at it today in some sort of reverie, and realized it was supposed to be a word in English.
Can you figure out what it is? (Click the link)
Barring some early technical difficulties (failing CD players, skipping records, the like), I spun a pretty decent set at club 911 in the nearby town of 熊谷(Kumagaya). Please click the thumbnail below to get to the gallery.
Yesterday was certifiably the worst day I've had yet in Japan. Nausea, headache, email fighting, locking keys in cars, insomnia ... it had everything that makes a day shitty.
In one of the few five-minute spans that wasn't occupied by crap, I managed to escape to the nearby 麦 (mugi: barley) fields for some pictures. The colors aren't so interesting in photographs, but it was nice to get out.
And who can't feel warm and fuzzy for at least a moment at the sight of a bunch of ducklings!
Click on the thumbnail for the gallery...
My parents brought a veritable boatload of chocolate with them when they visited. One of the pieces was possessed:
Note: In the end, it was coconutty and delicious.
This past weekend I took a short trip to Okinawa with Roy and Pete. It was great fun, filled with sunburns, drinking in deserted bars, snorkeling, and of course searching for "beach bunnies" who weren't there. At least we had crabs...er...I mean we saw crabs. Hermit crabs!
As per usual, click on the thumbnail below for the full gallery.
My parents visited from the end of March into April. It was a great visit and we took a million pictures between the three of us. Here's the beginning of the set. It will be added to, so if you're interested make sure to check back over time as I hand-pick the best pictures to add.
Here it is, my most recent set of random pictures that make you say "what the hell?"
Of particular note are the "Eyelids fold" pictures, which advertise (for $150 no less) a medieval-torture-device disguised as a tool to give asian women a more western-looking eyelid. Some asian people don't have folds in their eyelids, a feature that is seen as distinctly western. This idiotic tool apparently gives them that.
Click on the thumbnail for the gallery.
Back in the day in 2001, I, my sister, and a few friends decided to do a spring break trip. This one forsook drunken sorority girls and tropical weather for rocks and sand. Arizona turned out to be a place of breathtaking beauty. I do, however, remember that I was shocked by the lack of trees, and even felt a bit claustrophobic due to their absence. After all, I grew up in the Northeast, where you can't go 50 feet without seeing at least a few trees.
I found the pictures archived on my computer, as I had long ago scanned them from prints. Keep in mind that the colors can be a bit weird thanks to the scans, and the pics aren't the best size. Regardless, they're pretty cool. Makes me want to go back. Ah, to be back in a place where you can look for miles and not see a single person!
Last weekend I went on a short trip with Pete and Roy up to the freezing country in the north known as 岩手 (Iwate). It was cold, kind of like home. In this cold, a tiny town has a festival every year involving dozens of near-naked men running through the streets having enormous bucketfuls of water dumped on them. It doesn't look fun, though you can smell the 酒 (sake) on them from meters away.
Here are the results of the journey.
Not long ago, I was terrified of public addresses. In high school I hated giving presentations, and during college I warmed up to it a bit but still found myself insanely nervous and sweating. Now, naturally, fate would have it that it's my job! And I think I do a damn good job too. I can sit there in front of a bunch of people talking about whatever with hardly a quiver of the stomach or a sweaty palm.
I've come leaps and bounds in the field of "public" urination as well. I don't mean peeing on people's driveways (no lawns here in 行田) but rather stepping up to the task of peeing while a bunch of people are watching you. It's called "Stage Fright" and I think a lot of men get it while sitting standing there trying so hard to pee at a urinal while everyone's waiting for their turn and watching like vultures. Believe it or not, this does happen, and it sucks. But I've conquered this too! Why?
I've wanted to write about this for a while, but haven't had the time really to go around taking pictures of my school's bathroom. I also didn't want to have to explain to any wandering teachers/students why I was taking pictures of the boys' bathroom. That would be weird. So today in the middle of a class period I snuck most stealthily to the bathroom and took pictures. Naturally one of the teachers caught me and literally was falling over in her weirded-out-ness. I explained, with as little blushing as possible, that at least at my high school we didn't have enormous picture windows in the door. Thanks to this viewport, I try to take my pee breaks whenever classes are in session, thus minimizing hordes of students passing by and peeping.
Stage Fright becomes a thing of the past when you have to pee at these for more than a year. Trust me, squeaking girls outside the door is a much tougher audience than a bunch of other men. Get used to that, and you're good as er ... gold.
Luckily, aforementioned teacher didn't see me taking pictures of the toilet stall itself. See, this looks like a relatively (if a little cramped) normal toilet stall, right? I guess it would be, if not for the ice they made the seat out of . The window open to the outside doesn't help matters. I've sat down to ... do my thing ... on occasions, and the cold seat was enough to prevent my thing from ever being done. It really is a sad state of affairs.
Finally, the piece de resistance. The depth of view in this picture isn't the best, but hopefully the included hand gives you some idea of just how cramped this stall really is. The tips of the fingers are touching the opposite wall, which just happens to be literally half an inch away from my knees. This is obviously a simulated situation, but believe me it's no different than the real thing (aside from frigid butt). It's not so much of a problem when you're actually on the john, but it makes the partial-disrobing process beforehand infinitely harder than I ever thought was possible in a "civilized" bathroom. I'm by no means a tall person. I pity anyone taller than I forced to use this thing. Sometimes I've actually given thought to standing on the toilet itself to get some more room. Before the actual deed, I mean.
In honesty though, as much as the toilet stall is cramped, I'm sure glad there's no window on the door. There are some things you just shouldn't have to do when a window is involved.
I'm back. I realize it's been a long time and my readers have just been absolutely slavering for a new post. That's right, slavering. You see though, the reality is that I do most of my posting in my short breaks between classes or when I have free time at work. Of course, I couldn't interrupt my movie or shopping marathons of winter vacation, could I?
This past weekend I went on a trip to 札幌 (Sapporo) and it was great. Lots of snow (totally nostalgic, there), beer, and hostess bars. Note that we didn't partake in the latter, though we had no choice about the former two. Not like there's ever a choice when it comes to beer.
To top it all off, we rode home on a Pokemon plane!
Pete also has a gallery entry (but you'll need a login to view it), as well as Will.
I just finished the majority of my Christmas shopping yesterday, trying to get significant and/or interesting things for my family. Below, you'll see just how interesting one of these things turned out to be. This is probably the coolest, weirdest wrapping job I've had to do yet.
Yeah, the Japanese characters are upside down. Oops. But it looks like a house with a chimney doesn't it!
The boneheads in charge of IT at the prefecture level (all high schools in Japan are controlled by their prefectural governmental ministry) run a content filtering app that I am constantly bumping into. Daily you can hear my curses when I'm (usually) trying to find something useful and run into this thing. The things that they do to "protect" the kids from the world, in the end, only manage to make school less educational and more ridiculous. Last time I was trying to find Halloween games to play with my English club. I was blocked from every page because the word "game" was included in the page. No games allowed in school! Enjoying even a moment of your class makes you weak and stupid!
Today I was looking up more about Nanking/Nanjing in thinking about a response I wrote earlier to Roy's comment. Apparently history is also a banned category!
Okay I kinda get censoring the violence part, but history? What the fuck?
We had a Halloween party (about two weeks too late, but whatever) for English club. The students carved a pumpkin (it's hard to get them here so I could only find one in the time frame I had), made Halloween cookies, and eyeball punch. It was a good and tiring time.
A few weekends ago we went to 焼肉 (yakiniku: barbecued meat) and the Japanese people in the small group (everyone but me) wanted to try some interesting things on the second plate. There were: pig's tongue, unidenfied cartilage, cow intestine, and cow ovary. Can you guess which is which?
I am all over the photo entries this week. Well, I guess it's more interesting for people anyway. Despite not many people knowing what it is or where it is, the town of Ashikaga (足利) has a lot going for it. It has Japan's first school (I think college, but I'm not sure), a bunch of interesting shrines and temples, and a really beautiful flower park. It's also just nice to take a walk around the not-so-busy streets.
Over time, I build up random pictures that I've taken singly but haven't been able to group with anything else. Like here and here and even here I've finally built up enough to group them together and label them as "Miscellaneous." To me, they're pretty entertaining. Some of them, I wish I had posted them sooner rather than forgetting about them.
We had a small 27th birthday celebration for my friend Naoki at a local Okonomiyaki (self-made fried thickass savory pancakes, if you will) place. I thought it would be a good idea to show off the kinds of things we enjoy eating sometimes.
I'll eternally think you're extra-special (isn't that reward enough?) if you can comment and guess some ingredients that make up this masterpiece.
Extra-extra-extra-special bonus points if you can figure out how one eats it.
Anyone who has lived in/visited Japan doesn't count (sorry, those 3 readers, no extra-special points for you this time)!
The black surface you see is a heated frying surface built into your table.
Yesterday Shinshukan (my school) had its big yearly sports festival. It was very fun and tiring for everyone. You can see quite a few different games/races here. Though the teachers weren't in the competitions (I wanted to be but there aren't enough young male teachers to make up a relay team), it was still a fun time. Classes today have been difficult for students and teachers alike!
My school had its yearly school festival this weekend. It was great fun. As you can see the students got totally into it! There were ghost houses, stores, movie houses, cheerleaders, dancers ... you name it!
Yesterday I announced that I was going to climb 富士山 (Mount Fuji) with Roy. Could that have just been yesterday? Seems so long ago.
We left Tokyo Thursday (yesterday?) night and traveled to the 5th station (about halfway up) of Fuji. We arrived at about 10:00PM and got going by a little earlier than 10:30PM. You see, it is somewhat of a popular custom to hike during the night to reach the peak and watch the sunrise. So we hiked for the next three and a half hours (it would've been three, did I not have weak chickenlegs) up some pretty steep volcanic scree. I can't believe grannies and kids do that hike, let me tell you.
The good news is that we passed pretty much everyone on the mountain. It became this kind of self-feeding obsession to not allow anyone behind us to pass us once we'd passed them. There were, naturally, other reasons I won't belabor. The end result was we got to the summit at around 2AM which is way too early. See it's friggin cold up there and waiting for two hours in near-zero temperatures with a whipping wind does not equal fun. So we spent two hours, me curled fetally in the corner of a stone wall and Roy sharing a tiny smelly public bathroom space with 6 other people.
We survived and the pictures prove it.
Let me give you a quotation from the Saitama Navigator book that every Saitama JET is given upon entering Saitama to live and work:
The Nakatsu River originates in Juumonji Pass at the border with Nagano Prefecture, forming a gorge of breathtaking beauty. The Nakatsu-kyou Gorge is claimed to be the best scenic spot in the Chichibu region of Saitama.
Today I went there and did a little walking around, preceded by a near-two-hour train ride which was followed by an hour-long bus ride.
Let me tell you, whoever wrote this book acts like (s)he's never set foot out of Tokyo. It was very pretty and all, but nothing I couldn't find back home in humble little Western Massachusetts. I don't even think this was a gorge. In fact, the only breath that was taken was my own ... when I dove into the river and my pants migrated to my ankles.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it. Swimming in "the wild" in Japan is a rarity, and it was nice (after being busted for swimming in a fishing area ... oops). And now I know not to fully trust this book of mine. I should've known when I realized it had completely omitted the part about the busride being an hour long.
But hey ... I did something with my day, and that's good.
Here's a posting of some of the typical things I see in a day. These pictures typify pretty much every single high school (and middle school) in Japan. I ordered the pictures such that you'll see them in the order that a typical student would see them as her day progresses. Of course, she'd only see my room if she actually liked English enough to visit it (which is a very unrealistic expectation).
I went camping with Pete, Nichole, Roy, John, and Wendy this past weekend. Tent-squatting snakes and frigid water notwithstanding, it was a great time. Probably the snake and the frigid water made it more interesting anyway! But I'll leave that for another time. I'm still tired and want to go to bed.
Some of the pictures are a little blurry or strange, but that's just a result of the camerawoman not knowing how my camera works. Good try Wendy! ;)
In response to the other day's self-indulgent-post-of-angst I give you a new, entirely different self-indulgent post.
This time, I got a haircut and looks smashing compared to the helmet-hair/receding-hairline look I was rocking a few days ago. In person it also looks strikingly Japanese. I guess that's not surprising, considering where I got the haircut ...
Feast thine eyes, and comment not upon the muscle-shirt, as it is simply my bedtime attire.
Ever had one of those days, where you feel and look your worst? Today is one of them. I demonstrate:
We had a hanami (Sakura-viewing party) during the weekend. It was beautiful. Here you go.
Dad left after a monumental visit with lots of rushing around and trying to see as much Sakura (桜, cherry blossoms) as humanly possible. It was great and very much worth it. So, to follow up and show you I was after all busy and not just a lazy blogger, here are the pictures. Note that Gyoda really does have pretty things! Imagine that! I am always surprised.
Also note that I have become a macro-lens addict. It just makes for such cool artsy-fartsy (or at least, my lame attempt at it) pictures.
Though my fingers seem a little too cold to be typing thanks to the open window, I suppose the sudden prevalence of flower blooms in Japan marks the real arrival of spring. I'll still have a hard time believing it until the time I can wear a T-shirt without any discomfort.
Enjoy!
Today I went and did something I've been meaning to do for a while: I bought a bench for my "ベランダ" aka "veranda." It's not really much of a porch, but I'm going to utilize it for what it's worth. I'm going to be an old man sitting on the porch with booze and a laptop. Well that's a pretty hip old man, I must say!
In the first picture, you'll see my "taste test" with my favorite, Bombay Sapphire. You see, tonic is insanely expensive here (I believe I've bitched about this before), so I took it upon myself to try out different things that might go well with Sapphire and not be outrageously expensive. Needless to say, my test didn't turn out so well, but it was ... fun.
The other two pictures are of my bench arrangement. Awesome! Note the rum and Pepsi (Coke? Bah!) on my little table. And then you can see the "view." Not much, but hey, it's better than the other verandas, which give me a wonderful view of ... my neighbor's wall. Come summer, I hope to be chilling (rather, sweating) out there, lazily sipping on something better than cheap rum/Pepsi, and watching the cicadas creep up the trees.
There used to be an open space across from the heinously-ugly "Island Club" Karaoke joint in my town. Now, there is an equally ugly wedding store. I say store because there aren't many grandiose churches in which star-crossed Japanese girls can have their fantasy weddings. So they have to buy, at very high prices, time at an eyesore like this place.
So here we have Queen's Hill. I really would have preferred that they leave the old abandoned grass lot. But this is the face of "progress" I suppose. The other day I took a walk to document the absolutely terrible English they used in hopes of making the place seem more western and perhaps Authentic? Since very few people in my town can read English, I imagine the creators of this place feel pretty clever that they can get away with this. Then again, they probably have no idea that there's anything wrong with the English here.
In the fashion of www.engrish.com, here you have a lovely little gallery of eyesores. From the very moment you step into the parking lot, you're treated. Oh believe me ... treated.
Today it snowed a veritable buttload. At least, it's quite a bit for Kanto area Japan. It's pretty much melted a few hours later, but that's the wonder of photography, isn't it? It actually made my school (normally an imposing institutional grey concrete block) look kind of pretty ... when you ignore the institutional concrete block.
Last week I started a relatively unambitious project. It involved cutting a hole in my current ugly table and painting it. The cutting went without a hitch, but the painting was ... disastrous. The color makes my room look like a preschool.
How may you help? Tell me which color is better! I Photoshopped a few pictures of various views of the table with some colors that I thought would look better. Keep in mind, the Photoshopping isn't perfect, so the colors are a little weirder than they would be in real life. Also please note that I am in relatively rural Japan, which pretty much limits my color selection to primary colors. Oh, and no, color swatches don't exist here, which is what led to the original gaffe you see here.
And now, the pictures!
Also notice that I finally came down to a gallery design I like (I found out how to customize my gallery generator) and one that fits with the page. Expect later galleries to come in this format!
Please comment and let me know which color you think is best. I need your help! Join the cause!
Okay, so here we have some images I've collected over the past few days that were rather amusing. I hope you find them the same. I chose not to use a gallery because each one of these pictures screams for some sort of sassy caption...
I first thought "What the hell kind of store is this? A butt store?" Buy yourself a new ass! hell, sign me up, but not if I have to wear those pink pants.
Yes, the name of the store is "Erotica." No, they don't sell anything remotely sex-oriented, unless you somehow have a fetish for sunglasses. Cuz uh ... that's what they sell.
Not only pinball machines but also seals, whales, and dolphins all have frippers.
I just want to make it perfectly clear that I am not the perv who noticed this. Though it did make me giggle.
Ain't Henry adorable? Anyway, I've gone so far as to take a video of what he does best ... twitch! You'll have to get a relatively recent version of Quicktime to view it. I'm not sure about Windows Media Player or anything else.
It looks very erratic in the video because my camera doesn't take exactly stunning video per se. But you can listen to the sound it's making which will assure you that Henry twitches quite regularly. There are four "modes" in which he does different patterns. Here shown is the so-called "UkiUki" or "Happy" pattern.
I think not.
While puttering around in 大宮 yesterday in perhaps one of the cooler department stores on the planet, I bumped into the second one of these I've seen ... both in the same store. This is positively frightening. I wouldn't want to bump into one of these in a dark alley. What a mannequin would be doing in a dark alley is beyond me.
In the West, cartoons typically imitate life. It seems in Japan, life (or some semblance of it in the case of this mannequin) imitates cartoons. Overly-big eyes look cute and somehow "okay" in Manga and Anime, but seeing this on an imitation of a real person makes it look rather disturbing.
And without further ado ... the lap pillow. I told you about it once, and here it is in all its glory. Note the beatific smile of joy on my face. I must say, this pillow was nothing like a real lap. Maybe that was because it had so many heads on it that the foam was cracking. Eww. Mom-pillow, you need some moisturizer!
Not pictured are the fluffy-bosom pillow and the boyfriend-arm pillow that follow the same idea that people are weird and will actually buy crap like this.
So it's been a really long time. I was busy as hell.
My sister and her fiance (pardon the lack of French accent, I am too lazy to figure out the code for it) visited for a few weeks, and we went all over creation within a few hours' train ride of Gyoda. That doesn't mean we did very much since Saitama Prefecture is essentially the New Jersey (polluted and dull) of Japan, but we got plenty done.
This time we went to Nikko, up in the mountains of Tochigi Prefecture. I rented a car (remarkably easy, by the way) and we drove up to Nikko, where I promptly ran over a baby monkey. Yes, I am a horrible beast. But I swear it wasn't my fault! The cars on the other side of the road were driving moronically (caused, in retrospect, by the monkeys) and I was watching them cautiously wondering what the hell they were doing. I've learned that in Japan, driving doesn't mean anything remotely close to obeying any sort of order. This known, I was very much on the alert for boneheaded maneuvers from aforementioned other cars. I realized at the last second that the little monkey was headed straight for my car and ba-dump.
I speak of it lightly because somehow he didn't get hit by my tires. He managed to duck down and bump the underside of the car, but in my rearview he hopped up and busted ass (read: went really fast) off the road. Poor guy. I just hope it wasn't only adrenaline keeping him alive enough to get off the road. On the lighter side, I was the only one in the car to see monkeys that day.
Note that I use the male pronoun for this monkey. I do this because generally males (of any species) are the ones who are stupid enough to run into heavy tourist traffic. On the other hand, it was probably a female who managed to get them to do it.
Without further ado here are the pics, including monkeys (but not real ones)!
I will admit that is has been a while since I last graced your screens with random pictures of Japan. Fear not, here they are. Prima and I went to Kamakura, otherwise known as "Little Kyoto" because of the fact that not only was it the capital of Japan for a while but also because it has an assload of shrines and temples. That being said, here are a few from Kamakura. You'll notice that one of these places is a little familiar. It's Houjokuji, the bamboo grove temple seen in my previous pictures. Anyway, here you are!
All weekend in Kyoto (and long before that, too) I was whining about wanting a kitten. Said whining was spurred by seeing a man selling kittens at the river. I have been without a furry companion for a while. I have long wanted a puppy since my mom got a little princess Maltese, and in Japan especially I thought having a companion of some sort would be nice. But I didn't thing getting one would be a good idea seeing as I live in an apartment.
I was at the train station after Kyoto, and I noticed something in the street. Why had no one else noticed that there was a tiny, helpless kitten in the middle of the street? I scooped her up, knowing full well that she would get hit by a car if I didn't. Immediately I decided to name her (actually we don't know what (s)he is) Piki, or Piki-chan if you want to get Japanese about it. Maybe I'll come up with some kanji for her name. Without further ado, the first pictures! I'm like a new father, showing off new pictures of my baby to everyone ...
Yeah there are some bad pictures of me in here, but I am not the subject of these photos!
Ain't she just precious? >(^-^)<
Last weekend I went to Kyoto, and now I have all the pictures compiled, named, retouched, and so on. So here they are. Sorry for the lack of writing, I just have a kitten (more on that later) climbing all over me!
Well, I'm sorry it's been a long time. Things have been rather busy and disruptive.
Anyway, here's a traditional Japanese dance festival I stumbled across in Tokyo the other day. Make sure you download the newest version of Quicktime (Get it here) to be able to view the movies.
NOTE: Turn the volume down on your speakers. The sound is very loud and crappy courtesy of my phone camera.
Enjoy some more pictures courtesy of the Keitai camera. I guess eventually I'll get a real camera...
Note the pictures in the electronics shop...of the mechanical horses. Yes, this is the newest exercise trend. While America has that bullshit Atkins diet sweeping across the nation, Japan has mechanical horses. Just wait, it'll reach a store in the states probably 3 years from now ...
I told you I'd come up with some pictures. I apologize that they are small and blurry, but I hadn't had the foresight to figure out what size they were in. I guess my keitai camera isn't so good with motion either. But it's still handy as hell to have! Check out the 10 year old girls. So cute! And they could dance too ... This was at a small club called Fiesta in the nearby city of Kumagaya. Fun place, really. I guess you just have to know where to go around here to have fun .
As you can see, I've been taking random pictures here and there during my wanderings. The most interesting here is of me eating an enormous shrimp during Teppan Yaki. You eat the shrimp, as you can see, whole ... spiny things and all. This was the weirdest food I've had yet. This beats out Uni any day in the disgusting category, but the taste wasn't so bad. It was just the ... weirdness of it.
Uni (raw sea urchin), by the way, wasn't as bad as everyone says it is.
Note also the flower pics, taken with my keitai camera. Also please excuse the crappy quality of the engrish picture and also the pile of octopus picture. I didn't know how to use my camera at that point ...
Please enjoy the few pics of my keitai. Some are blurry b/c my fullsize camera isn't pleased with the lighting in here. You can see the cool lit-up "win" when it's in the docking station (yeah, Japanese phones get a docking station free, instead of having to pay $40 extra like you do in the states), and you can see the GPS feature. That's where I live!
Whilst my internet woes grow still greater, I managed to get out into town today with Lorna and Pete to Gyoda Castle and the nearby park.
Meet Bob, the laid-back Cicada. I think he's a distant cousin of Jimbo the pretty-dead Cicada who guards my apartment stairs.
Please enjoy while I call still more numbers in search of the ever-elusive broadband beast.
Yeah, sorry for such a long absence, but things have been pretty insane. You never really realize how much you need certain things; food, water, sunlight ... internet. Having gone through serious withdrawal (apparently though no one in Gyoda has heard of securing their wireless networks, none of them are strong enough for me to use ... curses!), I figure it's high time to start doing my blog writing "unwired" and update when I can. At least I can come up with witty things to say when I'm not trying desperately just to wade through the 400 emails in my inbox. No, that's not a self-aggrandizing statement. You see, most of them are notifications from Movable Type (the blogging program I use) that I've gotten yet another spam comment. I don't even know what the hell cialis is, but boy someone thinks it's important to plaster all over my page. Seriously, spam in every form should be punished with public whuppings. I know just about anyone with internet access would love to get a piece of a spammer or two. Not that kind of piece, you pervert.
So, about my experience thus far: I live in a town of 70,000 (I guess that's really "countryside" by Japan standards) called Gyoda in the Northeast section of Saitama Prefecture. Saitama is known by people in Tokyo as "Dasaitama" which pretty much means "uncool." Think of Saitama as New Jersey or Southern Connecticut is to New York City. But regardless of this, Gyoda is cool enough to live in. Unfortunately, I don't mean temperature-wise, because days here thus far have averaged over 95 degrees with over 70% humidity. Imagine waking up at 7AM only to find that it's already 88 degrees. Living in Gyoda has already been an exercise in self-discovery. For instance, I am reminded that my Japanese completely sucks. I also now know that I sweat more in one hour than I thought was humanly possible. Both of my JET friends have asian ancestry, so for some reason they are blessed not only with relative hairlessness (God am I jealous) but also, they apparently have half the sweat glands that I do. This usually translates into the one sweaty gaijin walking around the streets of Gyoda, even though there are three (or four, when Lorna joins us) new faces in town. I went to the local supermarket to buy groceries, and was astounded by the desparity of prices here. A watermelon literally costs $20 on average. A container of tofu (normally $1.60 or so in the US) costs 60 yen here, maybe 50 cents. 40 doses of asprin (less than a month's supply for me, thanks for the genes dad) costs $20. The most soul-crushing moment for me, though (at least in the grocery store) was the discovery that Doritos don't exist. At least, not good flavor ones. What the hell is "taco" flavor anyway? Oh God, what have I gotten into?
Most of my ramblings pretty much are things that every gaijin since 18-whatever have discovered. I guess I'll just be redundant. But every newcomer to Japan simply must visit the hyaku-en store. That's 100 yen for anything in the store. Basically it's a dollar store. Why so great, you may ask? Simple. It's not useless crap like American dollar stores have. Nichole (one of the other JETs) has bought so much crap there, I'm surprised her apartment still holds people. I hear Peter has bought one less item. It's all cheap, but it's really not as crappy as I may have expected.
I've posted some new pictures for your enjoyment. These are of my apartment and not-so-pretty Gyoda. Pay particular attention to the notebook I bought for Japanese study.
Collabolation!
Sorry for the long hiatus, but here we are with the first batch of pictures. This is a little delayed, but I can only get internet by hanging out on the top floor of a department store here ... and it's very sporadic!
Click the image to go to my handy-dandy Konqueror generated gallery.
Kali, the Indian goddess of destruction.
aka bunbun
aka poopmachine
I had forgotten to include the three Ireland panorama shots we took when I posted the pictures before. So here they are. They're rather large (after all, they're panoramas) but truly inspiring. If you don't like the weird border (that's what happens when a panorama gets stitched correctly), then uh ... tough. But look at how spectacular the stitching is! You can barely see any seams between pictures except on the Dingle thumbnail. This was all done automatically.
Click on the thumbnails below for a fullsize view of each picture.
Ask yourself what you can do with all of those really stupid pictures of yourself that you don't want anybody seeing.
Answer it the way Josh Wrisley put it: "Justin, this would make a great Guinness advertisement!"
Without further ado, I present to you my take on what you can do with all of those stupid pictures. Hell maybe Harp Brewing Company will pick me up as their next big thing! Just go over, take a look at the first picture in each ad (there are two ads), and make sure to click on the picture itself for the conclusion to the ad.
HA. Enjoy!
I found this wonderful little piece over at BoingBoing. Can you read French? Check out the end of this Seattle-printed clothing tag.
If you can't read it, I'll tell you tomorrow ;) Nothing like anticipation.
I wonder if this thing is real? It seems like something some smartass would create in Photoshop ...
My apologies for the delay on the Ireland pictures. I have been struggling for days with various web gallery programs, none of which do what I want them to: make a decent gallery. But here they are, finally, the Ireland pics. Please ignore the awful filenames you see in there, Adobe Photoshop has some interesting tools but for instance while you may be able to rename a whole assload of files, you can't undo it once you've renamed them. Oh and don't even get me started on how disgusted I am by the sorting algorithms available when you make a gallery. I blame those fugly filenames on the awful sort. *sigh*
Anyway, some of the pictures are out of order but I spent a lot of time and did a lot of extra coding to put most of them in the right place and make things look decent. And check it out, with just a little css border fun, I made it look like a real photo gallery with frames and everything! Whoop-de-frickin'-do! Hover your mouse over the thumbnail to get alt text which explains what the picture is. Please enjoy.
Those of you who may have seen me in the past few weeks might recognize that I've been having some "interesting" hair days. I can't say "bad" hair days because inevitably due to severe laziness I have those days almost every day. But I finally realized what it is I am shooting for with this haircut-hiatus.
Yes, you may find it awkward and mildly embarrassing that I seek to emulate a cartoon character. I, too, find it mildly otaku. But what, seriously, isn't there to like about this guy? He's badass. He's lazy. And he bears a striking resemblance to me, aside from the fact that he's a cartoon character, better looking, smokes, and lacks anatomical correctness. Nevertheless, we could be twins!!!!!!!
Taken from a promotional Cowboy Bebop Poster
A recent photo (any resemblance to past photos is strictly coincidental)
Simply astounding, no?
Click here to find fullsize pictures . This is a nested "website" I designed a while ago to put on a CD and give to people, and I haven't redesigned it much. So keep in mind it's pretty minimal in terms of "style." Then again so is this page.
The fullsize pics are much better than these posted here. Ask if you want copies!
More of the same, just some different angles. Oh joy! :)
Made with a generic web gallery generator, I have done my best to make this gallery the most visually appealing. Eventually I may have the time to update it and make the whole thing look good. For now, just the main thumbnail gallery looks good. I hope you'll enjoy these pics.
Don't let anyone tell you Western MA isn't pretty. It may be the very dead center of nowhere, but it certainly is a scenic place. This weekend was my sister's graduation from University of Massachusetts with a dual degree in Psychology and Music. CONGRATS NINA!
You will probably note that these pics aren't the most exciting in the world. Well theoretically that means
we were just having too much fun to haul around the camera. Yeah. That's what we like to think...
