Like delicate lace, so the threads intertwine,
Oh, gossamer web of wond'rous design!
Such beauty and grace wild nature produces...
Ughh, look at that spider suck out that bug's juices!
- Sir Calvin
Well, just a short little blog today methinks, to inform you all of yet another incident involving my powers of attracting older men.
Having nothing to do, I went to the gym all by me onesies, savvy? The first incident occurred while I was doing flys on the bench... sitting up and resting on the bench between the 2nd and 3rd set, an older guy with gray hair sits down on the other end of the bench and starts doing arm curls! How rude! According to Dave, some Japanese people treat foreigners as if they don't exist. Not the funnest experience, but what kenya do?
Moving on to legs, I start my leg press sets and a different older gray haired man goes on the leg press machine next to me. After I finish, I move onto leg extensions, and a few seconds later, the same guy is beside me on the chest press machine. Once I finish, I move back to the benches, and a minute or two later, guess who's on the bench beside me... that's right, I'm being stalked by old men in the gym. Should I be flattered? Or running?
In other news. I am still without peanut butter. This is important. Peanut butter is good.
I have also been the first one to claim the landmark 1000th post on the CJP forum. Boon-hau claims that by deleting one of his posts and reposting means he gets the achievement. I think this should be construed as cheating, and should not be tolerated.
Anyway, there'll be a longer post up in a day or 2. It has to do with how fine arts students are crazy everywhere, and should be quite entertaining of a blog. For a sneak peak, check out my webalbum at http://picasaweb.google.com/keidan.link.
Long weekend ahoy, 2 hours to go! Mmm 3 days to sleep in and do whatever I want!
Awwwk! Wind in 'is sails!
Showing posts with label OMLGP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label OMLGP. Show all posts
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Friday, July 14, 2006
May the Forces of Evil Become Confused on the Way to Your House
Still and quiet feline form,
In the sun, asleep and warm.
His tail is limp his
Whiskers drooped.
Man, what could make
This cat so pooped?
Wow, gotta start writing earlier so I don’t forget stuff… It has been a busy week since the last time I blogged. And yes, once again I filled my quota for meeting random older men this week. But that’s later on!
Friday was a bit uneventful, I stayed in and relaxed. It was nice. I played video games and chatted on MSN… mmm Playstation emulators. Early to rise Saturday morning, I was off to have fun and excitement in Osaka! I met with Keith and Tyson (a fellow CJP member) at Tennoji station, and we decided to check out the Umeda Sky Building. Very cool looking building, you can go up a great glass elevator 35 floors, then take an escalator (which has nothing beneath it) up another 4 floors. Not a bad view from up there, unfortunately the view from the roof is a bit obstructed (you’re not allowed at the very edge). Got some ok photos though. We ate in the basement… udon and sashimi and other stuff.
Next we were off to meet Tongxin and Boon-hau. After a quick stop at Daiso (100Yen Shop (Dollar Store)), which has the super annoying MIDI music I hear in my office on Thursday afternoons, we went to Tongxin’s flat to wait for Boon-hau. Tongxin has quite a nice place, with her own bathroom! Plus a little loft area above her livin room. I’m jealous.
After Boon-hau arrived we went to the shrine right near Tongxin’s place. She’s been here a month and hadn’t been there yet. There was quite the path behind the temple, we decided to hike it up there. Took us about two hours and 15 bug bites for me to get up, boy was I hurting the next day! Allergic to mosquitoes sucks, I just hope I never get stung by a bee. And it was hot too, we were really hoping for a vending machine on the top… since they have vending machines everywhere. On a side note, climbing up Fushimi Inari shrine is quite the hike… and yet they have cigarette vending machines halfway up. So if you’re out of breath and really need a smoke :P. Anyway, we were outta luck, but we got a good view of Osaka from the top.
It took us way less time down… maybe 30 minutes max. After a quick stop for popsicles at Tongxin’s we went to an isakaya for dinner. The outside was quite interesting, it was shaped like a pirate ship (niiice). Inside, we got the top floor entirely to ourselves, it was pretty early, and the owner/waiter person was quite nice, helping us with the menu. We order drinks, and he explains some of the stuff on the menu. We end up getting… let me think. A Pirate Salad which is mostly various sashimi, yakisoba, okonomiyaki, yakitori, and Tyson decides it’s a fine time to order a plate of horse sashimi. Yes, that’s right… I had to try some just to say I had. Very interesting texture and flavor, I don’t know how to describe it. Not bad tho, but expensive.
Anyway, the owner guy saw that I was very quiet and polite, and wanted to be specifically my friend. I shook his hand and said Ok! He was also impressed that I sat in seiza position for the entire meal. Not many people can pull that off apparently (least without hurting themselves), but I have no problems with it. But you all know I’m not exactly normal anyways. So yeah, obviously my friends wanted me to get my picture taken with him. Yes, I know I’m not looking at the camera, but there were 4 cameras going off at once and I had no idea who was going when. We get a group picture too, but not on my camera, sorry. After I head back to my place in Kyoto, and made shower curfew by literally a minute! Which was very lucky, after the sweating and the bugs and the sweating.
- - -- --- ----- -------- ------------- ---------------------
Onto Sunday I guess… after spending half the morning deciding whether I should bother goin out or not, I decide I might as well… so I get to the grocery store and decide to get food and go home. It was very hot, and I figured studying my Japanese would be the most useful way to spend the day.
That was until I talked to Anton, who wanted to go exploring and practice his mad Photography Skillz in Kyoto. So I headed down to Takanohara first, so we could go Yukata shopping. Unfortunately for me, they only had one style left for guys’ yukatas, so Anton got his, and I’m going back to get mine tomorrow (Got it! Picture up later!) when they get more stock in. So after we head to downtown Kyoto.
So we get off at Shijo station and walk through one of the back streets looking for a place to eat. Not finding anywhere cheap we settle for (yes Erin, it’s true) Wendy’s. It was not bad, got a bacon cheeseburger, nice to have something familiar. And mmm bacon. So then we check out the Gion area, against my better judgement (still scared of the English prof). Not too lively for a Saturday night, I imagine it’ll change this weekend though! Mmm, Gion Matsuri! But I’ll discuss that later.
Heading back to downtown we saw the ultimo in cool. What the hell, my Word 97 has the word Ultimo (which is apparently a suburb in Sydney!) but not popsicles, or terraform, or Wendy’s! Anyway, Ultimo in Cool! Yeah, we see a large old American car (sorry, don’t know my cars, couldn’t tell you what kind). Anton stops to take a picture, and the driver, a young Japanese guy, sees us, and turns on the hydraulics! Didn’t expect to see that in Japan! A few minutes later we see another guy that had pimped his ride, with lights all around, and a laptop mounted on the front playin some American hiphop (sorry, don’t know my American hiphop, couldn’t tell you what artist). He was wearing a red jacket with a leopard print on It I think? Oh yeah, his ride was a bicycle!
So we decide to check out the river. There’s an area right beside the river, and at the time an amateur jazz band was playing. We take a few pictures and walk down a bit further, where there’s girls in yukata and guys not in yukata lighting off some fireworks! They start talking to us. And by us I mean Anton, since I’m inarticulate in the ways of Japanese. Oddly enough I can understand waaaay more than I can speak, while Anton claims the opposite for him. Anyway, after talkin for a bit, we part ways, and we head back up to downtown, passing by a Jamaican guy playing the drums.
We got drinks at a vending machine. Anton got a fruity rainbow drink outside a place that sells… Canadian whiskey, among other things. And then we went in search of pizza. Not having any clue, we ask a guy at a convenience store if there’s a pizza place nearby, and he says the closest one is a 30 minute walk. Then I start thinking… I kinda know where we are, and I thought there was a pizza place maybe 15 minutes away max. So I start leading the way, only to get to the exact store I was thinkin of 2 minutes later ><. Dunno what the guy at the convenience store was thinking. Anyway, it sure wasn’t Pizza Hut, thin crust, no grease, I was kinda disappointed. Oh well.We head back home, I’m always a fan of making shower curfew, so people don’t have to smell me.
- - -- --- ----- -------- ------------- ---------------------
Muuuuuchos other stuff new. Work is going much better recently, I’ve got a lot more to do. Monday was brutal, with the meeting lasting nearly 3 hours. But afterwards I actually got some work done! I’ve actually been fairly busy since Friday, measuring tooth impedance and graphing the data. I actually find it fairly interesting.
Wake Up Neo. The Matrix Has You.
So I finally downloaded Skype yesterday. I’ve been talking to my parents a bit on MSN, and I have a webcam, but unfortunately their microphone isn’t working. Doing my research on USB connections I think I know why that is, but anyway. So I figured I’d phone em. I was talking to my mom on MSN before I called, then as I called I typed "Ring Ring"… assuming she’d get the point and answer the phone. But nooooo… so the answering machine picks up, and I say "Ring Ring"… still nothing! My mommy is funny. Was nice to call home though, talked for 45 minutes, and it cost me a whole 75 pence! I expect compensation when I return.
Hmm, future plans… Gion Matsuri on the weekend, sounds like Anton’s place is gonna be absolutely squished to the max. The festival should be quite fun. I’m thinking of going to a concert on Saturday though… mmm Coldplay. Just gotta figure out how to buy a ticket. Going to get my Yukata tomorrow, then me and Anton are going to an isakaya with Uncle Masa (which we did, was alright, nothin interesting to tell really).
Pirates comes out a week from Saturday, definitely gonna see it the first day! I hear it broke some major records, rather impressive. Then that Sunday we’re thinking of goin surfing in Wakayama.The following weekend is a five day weekend for me, company holiday! I’m thinking of going down to Tokyo for a few days, since I haven’t been yet. So if anyone is able to put me up for a few days, let me know, that’d be excellent!
Then the next weekend is Byron’s first week in Japan! Then the next weekend is Obon week, with a potential Okinawa trip in the works, or a super massive rock concert if that falls through. Then the next weekend is Fuji-san!!! Wow, that’s a month and a half of fully booked weekends ahead!
I’ll probably post this in the morning, got pics to upload first, and links to add, and other stuff. Like pie. And my online photo album will be up soon I hope. Depends on the lack of sleep this weekend!
In the sun, asleep and warm.
His tail is limp his
Whiskers drooped.
Man, what could make
This cat so pooped?
Wow, gotta start writing earlier so I don’t forget stuff… It has been a busy week since the last time I blogged. And yes, once again I filled my quota for meeting random older men this week. But that’s later on!
Friday was a bit uneventful, I stayed in and relaxed. It was nice. I played video games and chatted on MSN… mmm Playstation emulators. Early to rise Saturday morning, I was off to have fun and excitement in Osaka! I met with Keith and Tyson (a fellow CJP member) at Tennoji station, and we decided to check out the Umeda Sky Building. Very cool looking building, you can go up a great glass elevator 35 floors, then take an escalator (which has nothing beneath it) up another 4 floors. Not a bad view from up there, unfortunately the view from the roof is a bit obstructed (you’re not allowed at the very edge). Got some ok photos though. We ate in the basement… udon and sashimi and other stuff.
Next we were off to meet Tongxin and Boon-hau. After a quick stop at Daiso (100Yen Shop (Dollar Store)), which has the super annoying MIDI music I hear in my office on Thursday afternoons, we went to Tongxin’s flat to wait for Boon-hau. Tongxin has quite a nice place, with her own bathroom! Plus a little loft area above her livin room. I’m jealous.
After Boon-hau arrived we went to the shrine right near Tongxin’s place. She’s been here a month and hadn’t been there yet. There was quite the path behind the temple, we decided to hike it up there. Took us about two hours and 15 bug bites for me to get up, boy was I hurting the next day! Allergic to mosquitoes sucks, I just hope I never get stung by a bee. And it was hot too, we were really hoping for a vending machine on the top… since they have vending machines everywhere. On a side note, climbing up Fushimi Inari shrine is quite the hike… and yet they have cigarette vending machines halfway up. So if you’re out of breath and really need a smoke :P. Anyway, we were outta luck, but we got a good view of Osaka from the top.
It took us way less time down… maybe 30 minutes max. After a quick stop for popsicles at Tongxin’s we went to an isakaya for dinner. The outside was quite interesting, it was shaped like a pirate ship (niiice). Inside, we got the top floor entirely to ourselves, it was pretty early, and the owner/waiter person was quite nice, helping us with the menu. We order drinks, and he explains some of the stuff on the menu. We end up getting… let me think. A Pirate Salad which is mostly various sashimi, yakisoba, okonomiyaki, yakitori, and Tyson decides it’s a fine time to order a plate of horse sashimi. Yes, that’s right… I had to try some just to say I had. Very interesting texture and flavor, I don’t know how to describe it. Not bad tho, but expensive.
Anyway, the owner guy saw that I was very quiet and polite, and wanted to be specifically my friend. I shook his hand and said Ok! He was also impressed that I sat in seiza position for the entire meal. Not many people can pull that off apparently (least without hurting themselves), but I have no problems with it. But you all know I’m not exactly normal anyways. So yeah, obviously my friends wanted me to get my picture taken with him. Yes, I know I’m not looking at the camera, but there were 4 cameras going off at once and I had no idea who was going when. We get a group picture too, but not on my camera, sorry. After I head back to my place in Kyoto, and made shower curfew by literally a minute! Which was very lucky, after the sweating and the bugs and the sweating.
- - -- --- ----- -------- ------------- ---------------------
Onto Sunday I guess… after spending half the morning deciding whether I should bother goin out or not, I decide I might as well… so I get to the grocery store and decide to get food and go home. It was very hot, and I figured studying my Japanese would be the most useful way to spend the day.
That was until I talked to Anton, who wanted to go exploring and practice his mad Photography Skillz in Kyoto. So I headed down to Takanohara first, so we could go Yukata shopping. Unfortunately for me, they only had one style left for guys’ yukatas, so Anton got his, and I’m going back to get mine tomorrow (Got it! Picture up later!) when they get more stock in. So after we head to downtown Kyoto.
So we get off at Shijo station and walk through one of the back streets looking for a place to eat. Not finding anywhere cheap we settle for (yes Erin, it’s true) Wendy’s. It was not bad, got a bacon cheeseburger, nice to have something familiar. And mmm bacon. So then we check out the Gion area, against my better judgement (still scared of the English prof). Not too lively for a Saturday night, I imagine it’ll change this weekend though! Mmm, Gion Matsuri! But I’ll discuss that later.
Heading back to downtown we saw the ultimo in cool. What the hell, my Word 97 has the word Ultimo (which is apparently a suburb in Sydney!) but not popsicles, or terraform, or Wendy’s! Anyway, Ultimo in Cool! Yeah, we see a large old American car (sorry, don’t know my cars, couldn’t tell you what kind). Anton stops to take a picture, and the driver, a young Japanese guy, sees us, and turns on the hydraulics! Didn’t expect to see that in Japan! A few minutes later we see another guy that had pimped his ride, with lights all around, and a laptop mounted on the front playin some American hiphop (sorry, don’t know my American hiphop, couldn’t tell you what artist). He was wearing a red jacket with a leopard print on It I think? Oh yeah, his ride was a bicycle!
So we decide to check out the river. There’s an area right beside the river, and at the time an amateur jazz band was playing. We take a few pictures and walk down a bit further, where there’s girls in yukata and guys not in yukata lighting off some fireworks! They start talking to us. And by us I mean Anton, since I’m inarticulate in the ways of Japanese. Oddly enough I can understand waaaay more than I can speak, while Anton claims the opposite for him. Anyway, after talkin for a bit, we part ways, and we head back up to downtown, passing by a Jamaican guy playing the drums.
We got drinks at a vending machine. Anton got a fruity rainbow drink outside a place that sells… Canadian whiskey, among other things. And then we went in search of pizza. Not having any clue, we ask a guy at a convenience store if there’s a pizza place nearby, and he says the closest one is a 30 minute walk. Then I start thinking… I kinda know where we are, and I thought there was a pizza place maybe 15 minutes away max. So I start leading the way, only to get to the exact store I was thinkin of 2 minutes later ><. Dunno what the guy at the convenience store was thinking. Anyway, it sure wasn’t Pizza Hut, thin crust, no grease, I was kinda disappointed. Oh well.We head back home, I’m always a fan of making shower curfew, so people don’t have to smell me.
- - -- --- ----- -------- ------------- ---------------------
Muuuuuchos other stuff new. Work is going much better recently, I’ve got a lot more to do. Monday was brutal, with the meeting lasting nearly 3 hours. But afterwards I actually got some work done! I’ve actually been fairly busy since Friday, measuring tooth impedance and graphing the data. I actually find it fairly interesting.
Wake Up Neo. The Matrix Has You.
So I finally downloaded Skype yesterday. I’ve been talking to my parents a bit on MSN, and I have a webcam, but unfortunately their microphone isn’t working. Doing my research on USB connections I think I know why that is, but anyway. So I figured I’d phone em. I was talking to my mom on MSN before I called, then as I called I typed "Ring Ring"… assuming she’d get the point and answer the phone. But nooooo… so the answering machine picks up, and I say "Ring Ring"… still nothing! My mommy is funny. Was nice to call home though, talked for 45 minutes, and it cost me a whole 75 pence! I expect compensation when I return.
Hmm, future plans… Gion Matsuri on the weekend, sounds like Anton’s place is gonna be absolutely squished to the max. The festival should be quite fun. I’m thinking of going to a concert on Saturday though… mmm Coldplay. Just gotta figure out how to buy a ticket. Going to get my Yukata tomorrow, then me and Anton are going to an isakaya with Uncle Masa (which we did, was alright, nothin interesting to tell really).
Pirates comes out a week from Saturday, definitely gonna see it the first day! I hear it broke some major records, rather impressive. Then that Sunday we’re thinking of goin surfing in Wakayama.The following weekend is a five day weekend for me, company holiday! I’m thinking of going down to Tokyo for a few days, since I haven’t been yet. So if anyone is able to put me up for a few days, let me know, that’d be excellent!
Then the next weekend is Byron’s first week in Japan! Then the next weekend is Obon week, with a potential Okinawa trip in the works, or a super massive rock concert if that falls through. Then the next weekend is Fuji-san!!! Wow, that’s a month and a half of fully booked weekends ahead!
I’ll probably post this in the morning, got pics to upload first, and links to add, and other stuff. Like pie. And my online photo album will be up soon I hope. Depends on the lack of sleep this weekend!
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
As You Gain Experience, You'll Realize That All Logical Questions are Considered Insubordination
So you don't know where you're going but you want to talk
And you feel like you're going where you've been before
You'll tell anyone who will listen but you feel ignored
Nothing's really making any sense at all…
Mondays are difficult. Let me explain:
Imagine you’re 8 years old and your parents are having a dinner party… everyone’s dressed fancy and talking with big complex words and you can’t understand anything. After standing around bored for 2 hours, someone asks you a question, and everyone goes silent and turns to look at you, expecting an intelligent answer…
Or perhaps another example… Imagine being handcuffed to a chair, being forced to watch Ultraviolet in Portuguese, followed immediately by The Horse Whisperer in French.
Anyway, it’s not fun, but unavoidable I guess. 2+ hour meetings, all in Japanese. But it’s better than Friday afternoons… I still can’t tune out that evil evil accordion music.
I’ve been studying lots for Japanese, but while I know the rules, it’s hard to actually put em to use. I’m thinkin a good idea is to get some Japanese Manga (graphic novels) and practice that way, learning sentence structure, etc. I need to work on vocab too. I’ll get better eventually I hope, I still got 9 months to practice.
Work’s been going a bit better though. They have me working with tooth impedance and I feel semi useful. It didn’t take me long to do the work, so I killed some time by making a fancy excel spreadsheet, which got mad at me when I tried to input a formula that was waaay too big for it. I don’t blame it, the formula looked like the Horrendous Space Kablooie. And then I showed my supervisor who thought the numbers it generated were too low, even though I explained to him that I chose example numbers at random since nobody gave me actual values yet. Maybe tomorrow…
Edit: Got the data myself after confusing the guy next to me, and it seems to work in my table. My supervisor thinks there may be a problem with the calculations/data, some of the numbers weren’t what he expected. But they do match my calculations, and I’ve quadruple checked my calculations, so… I was supposed to meet with him to discuss the data, but we all know what happened there.
Oh yeah, apparently the guy who’s been directing my main project quit over a week and a half ago. Which explains why I’ve seen him once in the past three weeks. But it doesn’t explain why I still haven’t been told he quit! What the heck do I do now? Gah!
Hmm… have I described my office yet? There’s lots of buildings at my work, including a sales office, the R&D building (where I am), and various factory buildings where the manufacturing takes place. The cafeteria/main factory building looks kinda like an old firehouse, all red brick. Like a normal Japanese office, everything is quite wide open, no cubicles or anything. Which actually makes it seem way more cluttered; you are able to see papers and binders and files piling up everywhere. I’m in the project area, off to the side a bit, which is nice. But it does mean I can be easily forgotten about. And I’ve already discussed the music in my office o.O.
Pirates are cool.
You lucky bums get to see Dead Man’s Chest two weeks before I do. I’m jealous. The Kraken looks awesome.
I guess I should talk about my weekend at some point… On Friday I had my welcoming party. My section at work went out for Okonomiyaki, it was quite good. Afterwards the younger ones in our party went to a nearby bar where we met up with the some of the other guys from the company. Quite a nice little bar, we had a room at the back to ourselves, where we sat on the floor by a low table of course. I couldn’t understand much of what was going on, but it was still pretty fun. Nice to see my coworkers outside of work, makes me feel I can relate to them a bit more. And I’m very glad about the lack of Karaoke!
Saturday was supposed to be a sleep day, but Vincent, Boon-hau and Tongxin came down to Kyoto for the day, along with Boon-hau’s friend. We went for lunch at Kyoto Station. The actual train station seems to be a tertiary function of the station. The primary function, is of course, shopping. The escalator goes up 11 floors, with nearly everything you could imagine… tons and tons of clothes, a floor just for sweets and gifts, a supermarket in one of the two basements... The top floor is all restaurants. The secondary function is as a tourist attraction. From the top of the station you can see the entire southern half of Kyoto, perhaps the northern half too, I didn’t explore enough, but it’s pretty cool. Next time I’m there I’ll take photos. And then, I guess, it’s also a train station… A fair number of foreigners around Kyoto Station too, but I guess that can be expected.
After lunch we took the bus to the Golden Temple. Quite pretty, but long bus ride. Slow too… for the first half hour we coulda walked faster than the bus. The temple itself is covered in gold leaf, so it’s quite neat. The area around the temple was nice too, lots of trees and a little lake. But the area felt too much like a tourist trap I think, there were nearly more foreigners than Japanese there. I enjoyed Fushimi Inari much more.
We headed towards Silver Temple after that, but unfortunately it was closed when we got there. Tongxin bought 2 cheap flute thingys from a vendor and we toured down Philosopher’s Walk for a little bit. After we went to Gion, and I left the group just before dinner. I was going to meet David at the pub where he hangs out, but I was a bit delayed…
Two minutes after I left the group, an older man (yes, apparently it’s not just Anton with the OMLGP) starts talking to me. He asks where I’m from, how long I’ve been in Japan, then says he’s an English professor, and he’s writing a Japanese-English dictionary. He then gives me a handful of pages of his dictionary and asks me to proofread them… on the street… on a busy street… on a Saturday night… I’m too polite for my own good, I read a few pages, gave him a suggestion or two, then said I had to go, I was running late.
Now, you’re probably thinking this is rather odd (almost on par with some of my other experiences), but I was completely prepared for this, and the coincidence of it nearly made me burst out laughing. Dave had told me earlier that he had had two encounters with the same guy years earlier, who asked him to proofread pages both times. And another past intern at my company has met him too! So Byron, be prepared! He’ll be lurking, waiting for you.
Last night I had the strangest dream…
Where everything was exactly how it seemed…
Before I forget, why not turn my blog into a dream diary! And by that I mean, let’s annoy you all with the insanity that goes on in my head every night. So I was sleeping outside (in my dream), I forgot why, maybe I missed curfew and got locked out. When I woke up I was being eaten by tick beetles (an imaginary bug, think tiny beetles that dig under your skin and give you lime disease). Then I was outside a bar in England battling against O-ren Iishi from Kill Bill. And then I was concerned about the batteries I was chewing on. I thought maybe it wasn’t such a good idea. Then I realized, well, when you eat electronic devices you’re eating the batteries inside them too, and that works fine! So eating the batteries separately should work too, they’ll just join with the electronics in your stomach! That was the justification I remember in my dream.
Ok, take the blue pill and return to the Real World, Link. Don’t worry everyone, I’m ok now… until I go to sleep tonight. Dreams as weird as these are rather common for me, it makes sleeping rather interesting. But some nights the craziness is a bit overwhelming.
I’m surprised how normal it is to me that everyone (including my friends) calls me Link here. I mean, it’s a cool name and all, but the concept of being referred to by your last name takes a little adjusting. Though some of my friends forget that Link is not my first name… " ‘Link Brett Adam’… Adam? That’s a weird last name!" ><.
Oh yeah, Sunday I met up with Vincent and Anton at Kyoto Station. We were gonna go back to the dining bar nearby that I wrote about before, but unfortunately it was closed. So we went to a little ramen shop nearby. It was quite good, a little weird with the music from the 50’s playing…(once again, I was expecting to hear this kinda music in Japan. I really did my research before coming here). We went for dessert at a café, it was quite good as well, mmm aisu kokoa and chocolate cake. Explored Kyoto Station, and then Vincent had to take the bus home… Anton and I returned home as well.
What else can I write about? Hmm, bought a fancy new camera. It is half the width of my old one, and lighter too. Plus the screen is four times bigger and picture quality is much better. So now I have incentive to take more pictures, and Anton will be happy cause I won’t be stealing his all the time. I will also be setting up an album on Picasa, I'll let you know when it's up. So you'll get to see all the pics instead of just the ones on my blog.
My Alien Registration Card is ready, but the ward office closes before I get off work at night, so I gotta find a way to pick it up. Maybe I can make a mad dash during lunch.
I finished phase IV of the kitchen cleanup project. Phase I was the fridge, which had a healthy layer of grime on the inside. II was the garbage can, which we could smell from our dorm rooms. III was the dish drying rack. You’d assume that since clean dishes are going there, that it would be clean, and not have a nasty black coating on the bottom. You’d be wrong. IV was getting rid of the year of grease and miscellaneous foodstuffs on the stove, wall, pipes, shield for the pipes, and everywhere else. Byron owes me one. Maybe he can bring me candy from Canada. Maybe yes…
Reading the news this morning has made me a little bit uneasy. Missile test-fires very close to where I’m living can never be a good thing… I guess we will just have to wait and see what happens.
Anyway, another long blog so I should probably wrap it up…Further blog posts as events warrant. Farewell!
And you feel like you're going where you've been before
You'll tell anyone who will listen but you feel ignored
Nothing's really making any sense at all…
Mondays are difficult. Let me explain:
Imagine you’re 8 years old and your parents are having a dinner party… everyone’s dressed fancy and talking with big complex words and you can’t understand anything. After standing around bored for 2 hours, someone asks you a question, and everyone goes silent and turns to look at you, expecting an intelligent answer…
Or perhaps another example… Imagine being handcuffed to a chair, being forced to watch Ultraviolet in Portuguese, followed immediately by The Horse Whisperer in French.
Anyway, it’s not fun, but unavoidable I guess. 2+ hour meetings, all in Japanese. But it’s better than Friday afternoons… I still can’t tune out that evil evil accordion music.
I’ve been studying lots for Japanese, but while I know the rules, it’s hard to actually put em to use. I’m thinkin a good idea is to get some Japanese Manga (graphic novels) and practice that way, learning sentence structure, etc. I need to work on vocab too. I’ll get better eventually I hope, I still got 9 months to practice.
Work’s been going a bit better though. They have me working with tooth impedance and I feel semi useful. It didn’t take me long to do the work, so I killed some time by making a fancy excel spreadsheet, which got mad at me when I tried to input a formula that was waaay too big for it. I don’t blame it, the formula looked like the Horrendous Space Kablooie. And then I showed my supervisor who thought the numbers it generated were too low, even though I explained to him that I chose example numbers at random since nobody gave me actual values yet. Maybe tomorrow…
Edit: Got the data myself after confusing the guy next to me, and it seems to work in my table. My supervisor thinks there may be a problem with the calculations/data, some of the numbers weren’t what he expected. But they do match my calculations, and I’ve quadruple checked my calculations, so… I was supposed to meet with him to discuss the data, but we all know what happened there.
Oh yeah, apparently the guy who’s been directing my main project quit over a week and a half ago. Which explains why I’ve seen him once in the past three weeks. But it doesn’t explain why I still haven’t been told he quit! What the heck do I do now? Gah!
Hmm… have I described my office yet? There’s lots of buildings at my work, including a sales office, the R&D building (where I am), and various factory buildings where the manufacturing takes place. The cafeteria/main factory building looks kinda like an old firehouse, all red brick. Like a normal Japanese office, everything is quite wide open, no cubicles or anything. Which actually makes it seem way more cluttered; you are able to see papers and binders and files piling up everywhere. I’m in the project area, off to the side a bit, which is nice. But it does mean I can be easily forgotten about. And I’ve already discussed the music in my office o.O.
Pirates are cool.
You lucky bums get to see Dead Man’s Chest two weeks before I do. I’m jealous. The Kraken looks awesome.
I guess I should talk about my weekend at some point… On Friday I had my welcoming party. My section at work went out for Okonomiyaki, it was quite good. Afterwards the younger ones in our party went to a nearby bar where we met up with the some of the other guys from the company. Quite a nice little bar, we had a room at the back to ourselves, where we sat on the floor by a low table of course. I couldn’t understand much of what was going on, but it was still pretty fun. Nice to see my coworkers outside of work, makes me feel I can relate to them a bit more. And I’m very glad about the lack of Karaoke!
Saturday was supposed to be a sleep day, but Vincent, Boon-hau and Tongxin came down to Kyoto for the day, along with Boon-hau’s friend. We went for lunch at Kyoto Station. The actual train station seems to be a tertiary function of the station. The primary function, is of course, shopping. The escalator goes up 11 floors, with nearly everything you could imagine… tons and tons of clothes, a floor just for sweets and gifts, a supermarket in one of the two basements... The top floor is all restaurants. The secondary function is as a tourist attraction. From the top of the station you can see the entire southern half of Kyoto, perhaps the northern half too, I didn’t explore enough, but it’s pretty cool. Next time I’m there I’ll take photos. And then, I guess, it’s also a train station… A fair number of foreigners around Kyoto Station too, but I guess that can be expected.
After lunch we took the bus to the Golden Temple. Quite pretty, but long bus ride. Slow too… for the first half hour we coulda walked faster than the bus. The temple itself is covered in gold leaf, so it’s quite neat. The area around the temple was nice too, lots of trees and a little lake. But the area felt too much like a tourist trap I think, there were nearly more foreigners than Japanese there. I enjoyed Fushimi Inari much more.
We headed towards Silver Temple after that, but unfortunately it was closed when we got there. Tongxin bought 2 cheap flute thingys from a vendor and we toured down Philosopher’s Walk for a little bit. After we went to Gion, and I left the group just before dinner. I was going to meet David at the pub where he hangs out, but I was a bit delayed…
Two minutes after I left the group, an older man (yes, apparently it’s not just Anton with the OMLGP) starts talking to me. He asks where I’m from, how long I’ve been in Japan, then says he’s an English professor, and he’s writing a Japanese-English dictionary. He then gives me a handful of pages of his dictionary and asks me to proofread them… on the street… on a busy street… on a Saturday night… I’m too polite for my own good, I read a few pages, gave him a suggestion or two, then said I had to go, I was running late.
Now, you’re probably thinking this is rather odd (almost on par with some of my other experiences), but I was completely prepared for this, and the coincidence of it nearly made me burst out laughing. Dave had told me earlier that he had had two encounters with the same guy years earlier, who asked him to proofread pages both times. And another past intern at my company has met him too! So Byron, be prepared! He’ll be lurking, waiting for you.
Last night I had the strangest dream…
Where everything was exactly how it seemed…
Before I forget, why not turn my blog into a dream diary! And by that I mean, let’s annoy you all with the insanity that goes on in my head every night. So I was sleeping outside (in my dream), I forgot why, maybe I missed curfew and got locked out. When I woke up I was being eaten by tick beetles (an imaginary bug, think tiny beetles that dig under your skin and give you lime disease). Then I was outside a bar in England battling against O-ren Iishi from Kill Bill. And then I was concerned about the batteries I was chewing on. I thought maybe it wasn’t such a good idea. Then I realized, well, when you eat electronic devices you’re eating the batteries inside them too, and that works fine! So eating the batteries separately should work too, they’ll just join with the electronics in your stomach! That was the justification I remember in my dream.
Ok, take the blue pill and return to the Real World, Link. Don’t worry everyone, I’m ok now… until I go to sleep tonight. Dreams as weird as these are rather common for me, it makes sleeping rather interesting. But some nights the craziness is a bit overwhelming.
I’m surprised how normal it is to me that everyone (including my friends) calls me Link here. I mean, it’s a cool name and all, but the concept of being referred to by your last name takes a little adjusting. Though some of my friends forget that Link is not my first name… " ‘Link Brett Adam’… Adam? That’s a weird last name!" ><.
Oh yeah, Sunday I met up with Vincent and Anton at Kyoto Station. We were gonna go back to the dining bar nearby that I wrote about before, but unfortunately it was closed. So we went to a little ramen shop nearby. It was quite good, a little weird with the music from the 50’s playing…(once again, I was expecting to hear this kinda music in Japan. I really did my research before coming here). We went for dessert at a café, it was quite good as well, mmm aisu kokoa and chocolate cake. Explored Kyoto Station, and then Vincent had to take the bus home… Anton and I returned home as well.
What else can I write about? Hmm, bought a fancy new camera. It is half the width of my old one, and lighter too. Plus the screen is four times bigger and picture quality is much better. So now I have incentive to take more pictures, and Anton will be happy cause I won’t be stealing his all the time. I will also be setting up an album on Picasa, I'll let you know when it's up. So you'll get to see all the pics instead of just the ones on my blog.
My Alien Registration Card is ready, but the ward office closes before I get off work at night, so I gotta find a way to pick it up. Maybe I can make a mad dash during lunch.
I finished phase IV of the kitchen cleanup project. Phase I was the fridge, which had a healthy layer of grime on the inside. II was the garbage can, which we could smell from our dorm rooms. III was the dish drying rack. You’d assume that since clean dishes are going there, that it would be clean, and not have a nasty black coating on the bottom. You’d be wrong. IV was getting rid of the year of grease and miscellaneous foodstuffs on the stove, wall, pipes, shield for the pipes, and everywhere else. Byron owes me one. Maybe he can bring me candy from Canada. Maybe yes…
Reading the news this morning has made me a little bit uneasy. Missile test-fires very close to where I’m living can never be a good thing… I guess we will just have to wait and see what happens.
Anyway, another long blog so I should probably wrap it up…Further blog posts as events warrant. Farewell!
Thursday, June 22, 2006
How Am I Supposed to Write My Blog When I'm Trapped on the Ceiling? It's Impossible.
Explorers are we, intrepid and bold,
Out in the wild, amongst wonders untold.
Equipped wit our wits, a map, and a snack,
We're searching for fun and we're on the right track!
- Watterson
Continuing on where I left off, I stayed at Anton’s Saturday night, along with Vincent and Keith (and anton was there too). Somehow I got cold during the night, so I slept on the floor underneath my futon… I’ve had better sleeps… I’ve had worse too though, stupid mosquito.Eventually we all woke up, and decided to go get breakfast.
Anton’s Old Man Luring Gaijin Powers (OMLGP) benefited us again! We were discussing plans outside a coffee shop, when an older gentleman came out to usher us in, saying what a great place it was, and to come in and eat! Only he wasn’t an employee, he was a customer! Turned out good though, toast, hard-boiled egg, ham, potato salad and ice coffee (I still don’t like coffee, bleh).
Next on the agenda was climbing to the top of Fushimi-Inari. Anton was sick last time, so I was the only one to have been there… We climbed to the very top this time, which took us quite a while, since we took some detours, but it was fun. Once again there were high schoolers doing endurance training on the stairs up the mountain. Anton got some very good pictures, here’s one or two:
We came back down and went to get some food. Anton and I got the same thing. Anton asked what it was, and he thought the waitress said fox o.O… When he asked her again, "Is this fox?" she confirmed that it was indeed! No, kidding, she laughed a bit, and said, no, no, it’s tofu. So yeah, cold tofu and noodles in a very sweet broth, wasn’t bad, but quite different.
By this time it was time to head to Kyoto Station, Vincent’s bus was leaving at 4. Only Keith’s ticket got stuck in the ticket booth! So Anton and Vincent went on ahead, I stayed with Keith. We hopped on the next train and went to downtown Kyoto, hoping to cross over to the subway line and take it down to Kyoto Station… only we weren’t really sure where the subway line was (I take responsibity for choosing the route). We walked for about 15 before we found it, then met Anton at about 4:15… he was waiting for about 25 minutes, he took a much much shorter route not involving getting lost in downtown, and made me feel rather dumb, but oh well.
So Vincent departed from us, and we continued on our adventure by going exploring around Kyoto Station. We pass by a large hotel, and Anton sees an attractive Japanese Policewoman. He asks to take her picture, but she seemed hesitant… and eventually said no. There were a lot of cops around, and it probably wouldn’t look too good for her. So we move on, then start thinking why there’s so many cops… at least one on every street corner! I suggest some sort of famous person passing through soon. So we pass by another cop and ask him, turns out I was right, in an hour a Japanese prince was to be passing through.
Not wanting to miss an exciting opportunity like that, we decided to hang around for awhile. Keith and Anton figured this was a good idea to do something that would be considered illegal in Canada.
I should also mention there was a cop standing about 6 feet away at this point. We also saw a Japanese tour guide, even in Japan they have their flags to direct tourists.
So went back to where the prince was passing by, and met a good looking Japanese girl. Anton of course asks for a picture, that seems to be his favorite Japanese phrase :P. They take a picture of us too on their fancy phones. And we got pictures of the prince too, he passed by with quite a large escort.
Kinda reminded me of the one scene in Kill Bill, with Lucy Liu in the anime scene as the assassin on the roof… I mention this, and we look up. Sure enough, there’s cops on the roof for security purposes.
So we go back to visit the policewoman, where, after waiting for her for about 15 minutes (she did tell us to come back after the prince and she’d let us take a picture), we got some of her posing for us.
At this point it was about time for Keith to head home, so we took him back to the station and found a good route for him to get home. Sounds like he had some good luck on the train! Anton and I went wandering around looking for a place to eat.
Anton’s OMLGP worked again, only not in a good way; an older man came up to talk to us, asking if we wanted to take his picture. Anton does, then takes one with me in it as well. Then the man tells us he’s homeless, and if we had any money, since he posed for us. Anton tells him we don’t really have any to spare, since we’re students, so he left us… Wow, we really seem to draw attention to ourselves, I’ve never heard of any panhandling in Japan, not to mention such creative panhandling.
Dinner time, we pass by a little sign saying dinner bar, and some stairs leading down, and Anton and I, the adventurous type, go right ahead down. We’re greeted by some very cute Japanese girl waitresses, who seat us right away, then the owner comes to talk to us. He gives us a sheet of paper, explaining that he’s very happy we have come to visit, but that he can’t speak any english besides "Hello" and "I love you"! He was extremely cool, he was palm reading at other tables, managed to tie a piece of wire into a knot inside his mouth, and was wearing a Tom and Jerry sweater! He also showed us the notebooks he had collected… All the foreigners that come to his restaurant he has sign a page in his book and write/draw whatever they want. He’s had people from all over the world, a lot from Europe, North America, Australia, and Asia.
We order a beer each and our meals, Anton got Tuna and Mushroom Spaghetti, I got Grilled Chicken. Anton was also quite happy about the seating arrangements, he was facing the two cute waitresses. We chat with them too, find out their names and what they do. The food was quite good, and we even got dessert (Sesame Ice Cream, since it was the waitress’ fave ^^). Anton got one of their emails, so that they can practice their english together!
Time for me and Anton to head home, we go back to the station and take the Keihan line home. Another adventurous weekend complete!
- - -- --- ----- -------- ------------- ---------------------
Ok, so I'm combining two posts together just cause there's a lot to write about, and I'm four days behind on the Kyoto one, so please forgive the length...
Music in Japan Part 2 - If I Wanted American Music I Wouldn't be in Japan!
Music in Japan, as I have mentioned, is a mixed bag. A lot of what you hear wandering around is very old American music that you don’t really need to hear (Funkytown), or just downright bizarre (Accordion music at work, or the Midori theme song that was written by the Devil and sung by Phil, the Prince of Insufficient Light).
However, the actual bands (least the 4 indie bands we saw on Saturday), were really good! I guess being in a band isn’t exactly a well respected career in Japanese society, where everyone is expected to fit in, so if you’re going to be in a band, you had better be good. But then again, I've only heard 4 bands so far... gotta check out Tokyo before I make a professional opinion.
I don’t particularly like the American influence however. In general, I much more enjoy Canadian and British music than American (with a few exceptions), So like the second band’s whole "What!" thing really worsened their songs… and the fact that they did it every single song, well… I think it would be better for the bands to find their own style, rather than trying to copy the United States, but maybe that’s just me.
If It Ain't Broke, It Doesn't Have Enough Features Yet!
Shoes are loud! I got dress(y) shoes to wear at work, but they’re extremely loud and clunky. I can hear myself coming a mile away. And I can hear other people from half a mile. I quite enjoy walking completely silently at all times, and find it funny when I can sneak up on people, so this is fairly annoying… ah well.
The person beside me at work likes to talk to himself. Normally I would find this annoying, but he has a very cool voice. It sounds like Vincent Valentine! Check back in a few weeks to see if it’s still cool though, or whether I'm annoyed yet.
I’m not the newb anymore. I got called to a meeting yesterday, where my boss introduced the new guy! Though to be fair, I haven’t seen him around since, so maybe he’s in a different department? And either way, I’m still the lowest on the pagoda, since I don’t speak Japanese very well (or English either, for that matter).
Also, I got paid! (I hope… I should probably double check that…) Hurray, now I can buy a big screen tv and a stereo system and the pet gecko that I always wanted! Or I could save it for travelling to Tokyo for Canada Day!!! Wooooo!!!
14A Alert for the next paragraph!
Hmm, I’ve received multiple requests (from the same one individual) for confirmation that there was some scary equipment at the Onsen. So, to clear things up, I shall describe! Lucky all of you! Here goes… if you have long hair, it could get caught in the equipment that cycles the water. That would be scary. Burning yourself with the hairdryer equipment, also scary. I guess if you were very very clumsy and slipped while showering you could manage to strangle yourself with the shower equipment? Ok, enough! I’m out of ideas, and it was lame, but my point is, I wasn’t considering your feelings and I’m sorry I didn’t take notes of what I saw in the Onsen. Maybe next time…
I Like Maxims That Don't Encourage Behavior Modification
Onto more attractive topics, Anton and I got our cell phones yesterday, though I won’t post my email or phone number on here for obvous reasons. We looked around for Vodafone since we heard they were cheapest, but the only one we saw was closed, so we went to AU. We got a family plan, which worked out quite well, but we were in the store for an hour, signing all the paperwork and activating the phones. Rather fancy though, if I get a mem stick (Stupid Sony and their expensive Duo sticks), I can play music on it. Haven’t looked into what else it has yet.
Umm, afterwards Anton was pretty hungry, so we went into the Tomato Cooking Club and faked dumb, asking if it was a restaurant (obviously not, but there were girls our age inside, so, yeah, you know…). Nothing much came of thatthough. After asking a few random peopleon the street for a good place to go, we found an isakaya (Japanese pub). A very loud group of girls and guy was beside us, Anton wanted them to invite us over, but they never did. He even tried to get the waiter to ask how old they were. Crazy Foreigner.
Both of us were too tired to try and decipher the menu, so we asked the waiter to bring us whatever. (Note to others: while in Canada, this may be an ok idea, since you’re unlikely to get much weird, in Japan it’s a different story. But being the brave adventurers that we are…). So yeah, first dish was sashimi, which was quite good. The second dish, mmm some sort of shellfish! This did not look appetizing to me, and I wouldn’t have considered eating that in Canada, but I haven’t refused to try anything yet… It was squishy… Last dish was some sort of pasta with peppers, sausage, and asparagus, quite tasty. We pay the bill and leave the bar. Once again, too late to head back home, so I crashed at Anton’s for the night.
Not an overly eventful night, but the Tomato Cooking Club, the oyster things, and Anton acting like a dumb foreigner like myself to get a family plan kept up our adventurous streak.
Anyways, heading home from work now, where I have the night to prepare for the inevitable Accordion Afternoon. Next blog after next adventure!
Out in the wild, amongst wonders untold.
Equipped wit our wits, a map, and a snack,
We're searching for fun and we're on the right track!
- Watterson
Continuing on where I left off, I stayed at Anton’s Saturday night, along with Vincent and Keith (and anton was there too). Somehow I got cold during the night, so I slept on the floor underneath my futon… I’ve had better sleeps… I’ve had worse too though, stupid mosquito.Eventually we all woke up, and decided to go get breakfast.
Anton’s Old Man Luring Gaijin Powers (OMLGP) benefited us again! We were discussing plans outside a coffee shop, when an older gentleman came out to usher us in, saying what a great place it was, and to come in and eat! Only he wasn’t an employee, he was a customer! Turned out good though, toast, hard-boiled egg, ham, potato salad and ice coffee (I still don’t like coffee, bleh).
Next on the agenda was climbing to the top of Fushimi-Inari. Anton was sick last time, so I was the only one to have been there… We climbed to the very top this time, which took us quite a while, since we took some detours, but it was fun. Once again there were high schoolers doing endurance training on the stairs up the mountain. Anton got some very good pictures, here’s one or two:
We came back down and went to get some food. Anton and I got the same thing. Anton asked what it was, and he thought the waitress said fox o.O… When he asked her again, "Is this fox?" she confirmed that it was indeed! No, kidding, she laughed a bit, and said, no, no, it’s tofu. So yeah, cold tofu and noodles in a very sweet broth, wasn’t bad, but quite different.
By this time it was time to head to Kyoto Station, Vincent’s bus was leaving at 4. Only Keith’s ticket got stuck in the ticket booth! So Anton and Vincent went on ahead, I stayed with Keith. We hopped on the next train and went to downtown Kyoto, hoping to cross over to the subway line and take it down to Kyoto Station… only we weren’t really sure where the subway line was (I take responsibity for choosing the route). We walked for about 15 before we found it, then met Anton at about 4:15… he was waiting for about 25 minutes, he took a much much shorter route not involving getting lost in downtown, and made me feel rather dumb, but oh well.
So Vincent departed from us, and we continued on our adventure by going exploring around Kyoto Station. We pass by a large hotel, and Anton sees an attractive Japanese Policewoman. He asks to take her picture, but she seemed hesitant… and eventually said no. There were a lot of cops around, and it probably wouldn’t look too good for her. So we move on, then start thinking why there’s so many cops… at least one on every street corner! I suggest some sort of famous person passing through soon. So we pass by another cop and ask him, turns out I was right, in an hour a Japanese prince was to be passing through.
Not wanting to miss an exciting opportunity like that, we decided to hang around for awhile. Keith and Anton figured this was a good idea to do something that would be considered illegal in Canada.
I should also mention there was a cop standing about 6 feet away at this point. We also saw a Japanese tour guide, even in Japan they have their flags to direct tourists.
So went back to where the prince was passing by, and met a good looking Japanese girl. Anton of course asks for a picture, that seems to be his favorite Japanese phrase :P. They take a picture of us too on their fancy phones. And we got pictures of the prince too, he passed by with quite a large escort.
Kinda reminded me of the one scene in Kill Bill, with Lucy Liu in the anime scene as the assassin on the roof… I mention this, and we look up. Sure enough, there’s cops on the roof for security purposes.
So we go back to visit the policewoman, where, after waiting for her for about 15 minutes (she did tell us to come back after the prince and she’d let us take a picture), we got some of her posing for us.
At this point it was about time for Keith to head home, so we took him back to the station and found a good route for him to get home. Sounds like he had some good luck on the train! Anton and I went wandering around looking for a place to eat.
Anton’s OMLGP worked again, only not in a good way; an older man came up to talk to us, asking if we wanted to take his picture. Anton does, then takes one with me in it as well. Then the man tells us he’s homeless, and if we had any money, since he posed for us. Anton tells him we don’t really have any to spare, since we’re students, so he left us… Wow, we really seem to draw attention to ourselves, I’ve never heard of any panhandling in Japan, not to mention such creative panhandling.
Dinner time, we pass by a little sign saying dinner bar, and some stairs leading down, and Anton and I, the adventurous type, go right ahead down. We’re greeted by some very cute Japanese girl waitresses, who seat us right away, then the owner comes to talk to us. He gives us a sheet of paper, explaining that he’s very happy we have come to visit, but that he can’t speak any english besides "Hello" and "I love you"! He was extremely cool, he was palm reading at other tables, managed to tie a piece of wire into a knot inside his mouth, and was wearing a Tom and Jerry sweater! He also showed us the notebooks he had collected… All the foreigners that come to his restaurant he has sign a page in his book and write/draw whatever they want. He’s had people from all over the world, a lot from Europe, North America, Australia, and Asia.
We order a beer each and our meals, Anton got Tuna and Mushroom Spaghetti, I got Grilled Chicken. Anton was also quite happy about the seating arrangements, he was facing the two cute waitresses. We chat with them too, find out their names and what they do. The food was quite good, and we even got dessert (Sesame Ice Cream, since it was the waitress’ fave ^^). Anton got one of their emails, so that they can practice their english together!
Time for me and Anton to head home, we go back to the station and take the Keihan line home. Another adventurous weekend complete!
- - -- --- ----- -------- ------------- ---------------------
Ok, so I'm combining two posts together just cause there's a lot to write about, and I'm four days behind on the Kyoto one, so please forgive the length...
Music in Japan Part 2 - If I Wanted American Music I Wouldn't be in Japan!
Music in Japan, as I have mentioned, is a mixed bag. A lot of what you hear wandering around is very old American music that you don’t really need to hear (Funkytown), or just downright bizarre (Accordion music at work, or the Midori theme song that was written by the Devil and sung by Phil, the Prince of Insufficient Light).
However, the actual bands (least the 4 indie bands we saw on Saturday), were really good! I guess being in a band isn’t exactly a well respected career in Japanese society, where everyone is expected to fit in, so if you’re going to be in a band, you had better be good. But then again, I've only heard 4 bands so far... gotta check out Tokyo before I make a professional opinion.
I don’t particularly like the American influence however. In general, I much more enjoy Canadian and British music than American (with a few exceptions), So like the second band’s whole "What!" thing really worsened their songs… and the fact that they did it every single song, well… I think it would be better for the bands to find their own style, rather than trying to copy the United States, but maybe that’s just me.
If It Ain't Broke, It Doesn't Have Enough Features Yet!
Shoes are loud! I got dress(y) shoes to wear at work, but they’re extremely loud and clunky. I can hear myself coming a mile away. And I can hear other people from half a mile. I quite enjoy walking completely silently at all times, and find it funny when I can sneak up on people, so this is fairly annoying… ah well.
The person beside me at work likes to talk to himself. Normally I would find this annoying, but he has a very cool voice. It sounds like Vincent Valentine! Check back in a few weeks to see if it’s still cool though, or whether I'm annoyed yet.
I’m not the newb anymore. I got called to a meeting yesterday, where my boss introduced the new guy! Though to be fair, I haven’t seen him around since, so maybe he’s in a different department? And either way, I’m still the lowest on the pagoda, since I don’t speak Japanese very well (or English either, for that matter).
Also, I got paid! (I hope… I should probably double check that…) Hurray, now I can buy a big screen tv and a stereo system and the pet gecko that I always wanted! Or I could save it for travelling to Tokyo for Canada Day!!! Wooooo!!!
14A Alert for the next paragraph!
Hmm, I’ve received multiple requests (from the same one individual) for confirmation that there was some scary equipment at the Onsen. So, to clear things up, I shall describe! Lucky all of you! Here goes… if you have long hair, it could get caught in the equipment that cycles the water. That would be scary. Burning yourself with the hairdryer equipment, also scary. I guess if you were very very clumsy and slipped while showering you could manage to strangle yourself with the shower equipment? Ok, enough! I’m out of ideas, and it was lame, but my point is, I wasn’t considering your feelings and I’m sorry I didn’t take notes of what I saw in the Onsen. Maybe next time…
I Like Maxims That Don't Encourage Behavior Modification
Onto more attractive topics, Anton and I got our cell phones yesterday, though I won’t post my email or phone number on here for obvous reasons. We looked around for Vodafone since we heard they were cheapest, but the only one we saw was closed, so we went to AU. We got a family plan, which worked out quite well, but we were in the store for an hour, signing all the paperwork and activating the phones. Rather fancy though, if I get a mem stick (Stupid Sony and their expensive Duo sticks), I can play music on it. Haven’t looked into what else it has yet.
Umm, afterwards Anton was pretty hungry, so we went into the Tomato Cooking Club and faked dumb, asking if it was a restaurant (obviously not, but there were girls our age inside, so, yeah, you know…). Nothing much came of thatthough. After asking a few random peopleon the street for a good place to go, we found an isakaya (Japanese pub). A very loud group of girls and guy was beside us, Anton wanted them to invite us over, but they never did. He even tried to get the waiter to ask how old they were. Crazy Foreigner.
Both of us were too tired to try and decipher the menu, so we asked the waiter to bring us whatever. (Note to others: while in Canada, this may be an ok idea, since you’re unlikely to get much weird, in Japan it’s a different story. But being the brave adventurers that we are…). So yeah, first dish was sashimi, which was quite good. The second dish, mmm some sort of shellfish! This did not look appetizing to me, and I wouldn’t have considered eating that in Canada, but I haven’t refused to try anything yet… It was squishy… Last dish was some sort of pasta with peppers, sausage, and asparagus, quite tasty. We pay the bill and leave the bar. Once again, too late to head back home, so I crashed at Anton’s for the night.
Not an overly eventful night, but the Tomato Cooking Club, the oyster things, and Anton acting like a dumb foreigner like myself to get a family plan kept up our adventurous streak.
Anyways, heading home from work now, where I have the night to prepare for the inevitable Accordion Afternoon. Next blog after next adventure!
Friday, June 16, 2006
It’s Difficult to Comprehend How Insane Some People Can Be… Especially When You’re Insane
(Another Friday of accordion music will make anyone crazy)
My tiger, it seems, is running 'round nude.
This fur coat must have him made perspire.
It lies on the floor - should this be construed
As a permanent change of attire?
Perhaps he considers its colors passé,
Or maybe it fit him too snug
Will he want it back? Should I put it away?
Or use it right here as a rug?
- Bill Watterson
So many good titles I could use for today’s blog. I mean, I definitely needed one to do with insanity, but I’m sure it comes as a surprise to nobody that I have a list of a dozen good insanity quotes I could use. I chose this one though, simply because I’m not the only crazy person who thinks adventures are a good idea, no matter what they involve. So if you don’t already know what’s coming, here goes… Anton and I went to the Onsen with Kaitani-san, the man we met on the train last week.
After he wrote Anton a second time, we had to make a choice… we could lie, say we were too busy to go, we could ignore the email and look like rude foreigners, or we could go along with it. After all, gotta try an Onsen at least once, and this way we have a guide so we don’t draw attention to ourselves. (Haha, yeah right, two white naked foreigners in an Onsen, not drawing attention to themselves!) Besides, Japan is very safe, unlike Canada. One guy Anton knows spent 5 weeks hitchhiking Japan and had no problems. And also, we have a great story to blog about.
Anton wrote Kaitani-san (after this point I’ll refer to him as Uncle Masa, just to be consistent with Anton’s blog) to arrange a meeting, then he told me the plan when he got home around 8. Of course this left me 10 minutes to pack and run to the train station in the pouring rain if I was to meet Anton on time. Unfortunately I made the mistake of assuming rain = cold like in Calgary, and brought a jacket; when I got the train station I was wet and sweaty. But no worries, I’d be bathing soon anyway o.O.
Met Anton at 10 to 9 at Takanohara station in Nara. We both couldn’t help laughing at what a weird situation we had gotten ourselves into. It’s pouring rain, 10 at night, work the next day, and we were going with someone we met on the train to a place where we would be bathing naked with other people.
Aah, well, I didn’t come to Japan to work 9 to 5 every day and sit in my dorm the rest of the time. I came to have fun, have an adventure, and experience Japanese culture! And yes, this adventure does turn out for the best, and though I don’t have anything to compare it to, going to an Onsen at night in the rain seems like a really good time to go.
Maybe this is a good spot to describe an Onsen. I’m sure none of you in Canada have been to one, and probably most of the CJP hasn’t yet either. The place we went to was half Onsen, half Sento. Onsen is the outdoor hot springs, basically made out of stone, while the Sento consists of the indoor baths. The shower facilities are indoors as well. The total bathing area would have been about the same as a medium sized swimming pool. The inside baths were interesting, one had magenta colored water, another had seats with water jets shooting at you, another was filled with very cold (17C) water. There’s two sets of baths, one for each gender, and I’ve read that the genders switch every day or so. I mean you switch baths, you stay the same gender!!!
Hahaha…ha… ha… yeah… Lame joke courtesy of “Dave Barry Does Japan”. If you want an educational, informative guide to Japan, this isn’t your book. This is a non-fiction book about him, the Average Joe American guy, going to Japan with his family for three weeks. It’s a funny perspective on Japanese culture, I highly recommend it.
Edit: Managed to find the first chapter of the book online, if ya wanna read it, go here:
http://www.sdss.jhu.edu/~szgyula/szabolcs/davebarr.htm
Anyways, Onsen are extremely popular in Japan. Some cities (Beppo is one, I believe) are known for their Onsen resorts, where people go on vacation… yes… to have baths...
So I should probably mention this now. Everyone who knows me knows I’m rather quiet and shy. I’m also rather skinny, and my friends in Calgary make fun of me lots for looking rather young… so bathing naked with other people is something I would never even thought about back in Canada. I’m remembering a certain party at a cabin last summer, where I was the only one fully clothed, while other people (male, but they’ll remain nameless) were on the trampoline with only a toga on and nothing underneath. Of course, I was completely sober surrounded by people who were far from sober, but still, my point is I’m quite shy. So this was quite the experience for me. And yes, I know this is worthy of another “Cute” comment, grrr…
Continuing on with the story, Uncle Masa met us at the station, and we talked with him on the way to the Onsen. We found out he has a family, with a son (19) and a daughter (20 or 21, he couldn’t remember), so that makes everything quite less creepy. He also told us about Onsen, some of the rules and what it’s like. He asked if we had any tattoos. In Japan, tattoos are a sign of the Yakuza (Japanese gang), and Onsens don’t want gang members hanging about inside.
When we got there, we locked our shoes in a locker, then got a key to another locker upstairs and went to the change rooms. I guess locker room would be more appropriate, not really changing into anything except your birthday suit. Also, apparently you don’t wash before you get into the tubs like I had read, you just rinse yourself off. But perhaps if you’re going yourself it would be safer to wash first before getting in. You can also take a facecloth in with you, but you have to wear it on your head when you’re in the tub, it can’t go in the water.
We go into the Onsen outside first, and sat on a little rock bench in the bath. I was right beside the rock where the hot water comes out of, so it was toasty warm. After talking for a bit, we went inside to actually shower (Uncle Masa offered to wash Anton’s back, which sounds weird, but is actually normal in Japan. Anton politely declined however.), then went into the maroon bath and then the jet baths. I challenged Anton to see who could stay in the cold bath the longest. Anton won I think, I was quite freezing, I have no insulation on me. Masa had to leave for a few minutes so me and Anton went back to the outside Onsen for a bit. After we see some bamboo mats on the side that you can lay on. We decide to try it out, and I must say, it was really nice, with your eyes closed and the warm rain falling on you.
After getting out, Masa tells us it’s customary to have a drink after bathing. Anton offers to pay but Masa refuses, and buys us each a coffee milk. We talk with him for over an hour, about many different things. Finally we head back to Takanohara station, where we say thank you and goodbye to Kaitani-san. By this time it was 11:43, and the only way for me to get home was to fly according to Anton, so I stayed at his place for the night. Nothing else eventful happened, I got up at 7 and took the train back to Kyoto for work. I got to my dorm with about 5 minutes to spare before heading to the office. It was a good thing I had a bath the night before.
- - -- --- ----- -------- ------------- ---------------------
Hmm, other events this week:
Brett vs the Bugs: Round 1
On Wednesday night I had a fight to the death with a mosquito. I wake up at 2:30am from a nightmare about itchy hands, when I realize, it was NO NIGHTMARE!!! 5 bites from one pesky mosquito, it bit my back, chest and hands without me rolling on it and squishing it. I’m allergic to mosquito bites too, I swell up huge and itch for days. I wake up, turn the light on, and spot the sucker… and smash it with my pillow. In its death it still manages to spite me… by staining my sheets with my own blood!
Today had me taking measurements for use with the root canal machine at my company. This meant that I had to work with decayed, extracted human teeth for a few hours, mmm exciting and not creepy. And yes, another Friday afternoon with 3 hours of accordion music.
This week I’ve been doing a lot of soldering as well, working on the production of some of the units at my company, which I spent 3 days doing. It wouldn’t have been so bad, but the soldering iron is hot and it’s quite warm here.
I got my Denshi Jisho today (electronic dictionary). I still gotta figure out how to work it, the instructions are in Japanese, but it has an English interface and a stylus pen, so you can draw Kanji you see and it’ll tell you the translation, how handy!
And finally, the weekend ahead looks quite exciting, I’m meeting with a bunch of Co-op Japaners, we’re exploring Osaka again, perhaps going to the Kaede concert (if we can find our way there). So I’ll have more to blog about in a couple of days!
My tiger, it seems, is running 'round nude.
This fur coat must have him made perspire.
It lies on the floor - should this be construed
As a permanent change of attire?
Perhaps he considers its colors passé,
Or maybe it fit him too snug
Will he want it back? Should I put it away?
Or use it right here as a rug?
- Bill Watterson
So many good titles I could use for today’s blog. I mean, I definitely needed one to do with insanity, but I’m sure it comes as a surprise to nobody that I have a list of a dozen good insanity quotes I could use. I chose this one though, simply because I’m not the only crazy person who thinks adventures are a good idea, no matter what they involve. So if you don’t already know what’s coming, here goes… Anton and I went to the Onsen with Kaitani-san, the man we met on the train last week.
After he wrote Anton a second time, we had to make a choice… we could lie, say we were too busy to go, we could ignore the email and look like rude foreigners, or we could go along with it. After all, gotta try an Onsen at least once, and this way we have a guide so we don’t draw attention to ourselves. (Haha, yeah right, two white naked foreigners in an Onsen, not drawing attention to themselves!) Besides, Japan is very safe, unlike Canada. One guy Anton knows spent 5 weeks hitchhiking Japan and had no problems. And also, we have a great story to blog about.
Anton wrote Kaitani-san (after this point I’ll refer to him as Uncle Masa, just to be consistent with Anton’s blog) to arrange a meeting, then he told me the plan when he got home around 8. Of course this left me 10 minutes to pack and run to the train station in the pouring rain if I was to meet Anton on time. Unfortunately I made the mistake of assuming rain = cold like in Calgary, and brought a jacket; when I got the train station I was wet and sweaty. But no worries, I’d be bathing soon anyway o.O.
Met Anton at 10 to 9 at Takanohara station in Nara. We both couldn’t help laughing at what a weird situation we had gotten ourselves into. It’s pouring rain, 10 at night, work the next day, and we were going with someone we met on the train to a place where we would be bathing naked with other people.
Aah, well, I didn’t come to Japan to work 9 to 5 every day and sit in my dorm the rest of the time. I came to have fun, have an adventure, and experience Japanese culture! And yes, this adventure does turn out for the best, and though I don’t have anything to compare it to, going to an Onsen at night in the rain seems like a really good time to go.
Maybe this is a good spot to describe an Onsen. I’m sure none of you in Canada have been to one, and probably most of the CJP hasn’t yet either. The place we went to was half Onsen, half Sento. Onsen is the outdoor hot springs, basically made out of stone, while the Sento consists of the indoor baths. The shower facilities are indoors as well. The total bathing area would have been about the same as a medium sized swimming pool. The inside baths were interesting, one had magenta colored water, another had seats with water jets shooting at you, another was filled with very cold (17C) water. There’s two sets of baths, one for each gender, and I’ve read that the genders switch every day or so. I mean you switch baths, you stay the same gender!!!
Hahaha…ha… ha… yeah… Lame joke courtesy of “Dave Barry Does Japan”. If you want an educational, informative guide to Japan, this isn’t your book. This is a non-fiction book about him, the Average Joe American guy, going to Japan with his family for three weeks. It’s a funny perspective on Japanese culture, I highly recommend it.
Edit: Managed to find the first chapter of the book online, if ya wanna read it, go here:
http://www.sdss.jhu.edu/~szgyula/szabolcs/davebarr.htm
Anyways, Onsen are extremely popular in Japan. Some cities (Beppo is one, I believe) are known for their Onsen resorts, where people go on vacation… yes… to have baths...
So I should probably mention this now. Everyone who knows me knows I’m rather quiet and shy. I’m also rather skinny, and my friends in Calgary make fun of me lots for looking rather young… so bathing naked with other people is something I would never even thought about back in Canada. I’m remembering a certain party at a cabin last summer, where I was the only one fully clothed, while other people (male, but they’ll remain nameless) were on the trampoline with only a toga on and nothing underneath. Of course, I was completely sober surrounded by people who were far from sober, but still, my point is I’m quite shy. So this was quite the experience for me. And yes, I know this is worthy of another “Cute” comment, grrr…
Continuing on with the story, Uncle Masa met us at the station, and we talked with him on the way to the Onsen. We found out he has a family, with a son (19) and a daughter (20 or 21, he couldn’t remember), so that makes everything quite less creepy. He also told us about Onsen, some of the rules and what it’s like. He asked if we had any tattoos. In Japan, tattoos are a sign of the Yakuza (Japanese gang), and Onsens don’t want gang members hanging about inside.
When we got there, we locked our shoes in a locker, then got a key to another locker upstairs and went to the change rooms. I guess locker room would be more appropriate, not really changing into anything except your birthday suit. Also, apparently you don’t wash before you get into the tubs like I had read, you just rinse yourself off. But perhaps if you’re going yourself it would be safer to wash first before getting in. You can also take a facecloth in with you, but you have to wear it on your head when you’re in the tub, it can’t go in the water.
We go into the Onsen outside first, and sat on a little rock bench in the bath. I was right beside the rock where the hot water comes out of, so it was toasty warm. After talking for a bit, we went inside to actually shower (Uncle Masa offered to wash Anton’s back, which sounds weird, but is actually normal in Japan. Anton politely declined however.), then went into the maroon bath and then the jet baths. I challenged Anton to see who could stay in the cold bath the longest. Anton won I think, I was quite freezing, I have no insulation on me. Masa had to leave for a few minutes so me and Anton went back to the outside Onsen for a bit. After we see some bamboo mats on the side that you can lay on. We decide to try it out, and I must say, it was really nice, with your eyes closed and the warm rain falling on you.
After getting out, Masa tells us it’s customary to have a drink after bathing. Anton offers to pay but Masa refuses, and buys us each a coffee milk. We talk with him for over an hour, about many different things. Finally we head back to Takanohara station, where we say thank you and goodbye to Kaitani-san. By this time it was 11:43, and the only way for me to get home was to fly according to Anton, so I stayed at his place for the night. Nothing else eventful happened, I got up at 7 and took the train back to Kyoto for work. I got to my dorm with about 5 minutes to spare before heading to the office. It was a good thing I had a bath the night before.
- - -- --- ----- -------- ------------- ---------------------
Hmm, other events this week:
Brett vs the Bugs: Round 1
On Wednesday night I had a fight to the death with a mosquito. I wake up at 2:30am from a nightmare about itchy hands, when I realize, it was NO NIGHTMARE!!! 5 bites from one pesky mosquito, it bit my back, chest and hands without me rolling on it and squishing it. I’m allergic to mosquito bites too, I swell up huge and itch for days. I wake up, turn the light on, and spot the sucker… and smash it with my pillow. In its death it still manages to spite me… by staining my sheets with my own blood!
Today had me taking measurements for use with the root canal machine at my company. This meant that I had to work with decayed, extracted human teeth for a few hours, mmm exciting and not creepy. And yes, another Friday afternoon with 3 hours of accordion music.
This week I’ve been doing a lot of soldering as well, working on the production of some of the units at my company, which I spent 3 days doing. It wouldn’t have been so bad, but the soldering iron is hot and it’s quite warm here.
I got my Denshi Jisho today (electronic dictionary). I still gotta figure out how to work it, the instructions are in Japanese, but it has an English interface and a stylus pen, so you can draw Kanji you see and it’ll tell you the translation, how handy!
And finally, the weekend ahead looks quite exciting, I’m meeting with a bunch of Co-op Japaners, we’re exploring Osaka again, perhaps going to the Kaede concert (if we can find our way there). So I’ll have more to blog about in a couple of days!
Monday, June 12, 2006
The Conversational Equivalent of an Out of Body Experience
I think I felt an earthquake yesterday! I was on a pedestrian overpass, next to a train station, listening to a rock band perform, with people jumping up and down… hmm, maybe it wasn’t an earthquake o.O.
But anyway, that’s later on, I prefer to write my adventures in semi-chronological order so as not to confuse anyone (including myself).
First, I should mention work this past week… but not too in depth, I don’t want to violate the confidentiality agreement in my contract (or bore you all, this blog will be loooong)… I have 4 themes I’ll be working with during my 10 months here, and the first is improving upon a video memory circuit board. Only I don’t really know what I’m supposed to be doing. My first assignment is to check over the board, the circuitry, the signal, the VHDL code… only it’s not a very big job for the time I’m given to work on it. So maybe I’m doing something wrong? Or maybe I’m just prostar? I’ll let you all decide! I’m also helping a co-worker on one of his assignments, which involves me analyzing a nasty circuit diagram and figuring out what’s goin on.
Had another Monday meeting today, which means sitting for two hours, listening to things I can’t understand, and mostly trying not to sleep. Also, I’m supposed to describe what I did the past week (in Japanese).
Work’s not bad, it seems very independent, so I’m never sure if I’m going about it the right way. Anyway, not much happens after work during the week, I get home between 5:30 and 6. They tell me to leave if I’m not gone by then, not like poor Anton, who works till 9 every night. I have decided to devote 1-2 hours every night to learning Japanese… and I try to learn a bit at work too online.
Now to the good part of my blog… Osaka Adventure Vol. 1!
On Saturday Anton and I, armed with everything but my camera and a plan (both would have been good to have), went to Osaka for the day! First off, I would like to give a big thanks to Mr. Anton for letting me steal his pictures for my own use! So anyone reading the planetcjp blog gets to see the amazing pictures twice, lucky you!
We decided to meet in Nara instead of Osaka, seeing as how neither of us know Osaka at all, and didn’t want to get separated before we even met. So I went down to Yamato-sadaiji station and then we both headed towards Osaka.
We had our first… umm… experience?… within a few minutes of leaving; an older man (probably 50ish) started talking to us on the train, practicing his English. He asked where we were from, where we worked, our hobbies, all good. He said he had been to Canada (Banff of course). Eventually the topic turned to Onsen (for those who don’t know, Onsen are hot springs that you basically go in to bathe… naked… with other people. They’re supposed to be really good, and I’ll have to try one sometime.) . The older guy told us he likes to visit the Onsen once a week, and that since Anton lives close, he should come with him sometime! Perhaps on Sunday? He even offered to pick Anton up! Now coming from North America, this seems rather disturbing, but maybe it’s normal in Japan to be asked by strangers to go to Onsen? Thinking of how weird this was kept us laughing all day.
*Note: Asking the people at my dorm, and Anton asking at his work, this is considered weird even for Japan. Just so you know…
Next we went to Nipponbashi, Osaka’s electronics district. Interesting place, saw a store that sold miso paste, another that sold old photographs. We passed by a bookstore, Anton decided to go in. "Seems like most of the books in this store are about travelling" he says… look up, I says. The shelf above is loaded with a lot of porn books. Porn is rather, umm, accessible here. People had stands set up on the street with porn videos. Normal video stores had large cardboard cutouts of the very famous Razor Ramon Hard Gay. And yet, all their porn is censored apparently. Very odd…
We wandered around there in circles for a few hours. Anton needed some camera supplies (lens case and mem card), and he needed to change some dollars to Yen. Not sure where the bank was, he asked a lady at the department store, who was nice enough to take us halfway across the mall to the foreign exchange bank! That’d never happen in Canada. We also found Kitchen Alley (least that’s my name for it)… a long back street with every store selling miscellaneous cooking and kitchen supplies. Anton suggested that if I ever get fired from work (say from breaking the confidentiality clause), I should open up a sausage stand in Kyoto! It’s a great idea of course, Anton even found a good apron for me to wear! He suggested the blue, but I think the orange one woulda been better.
Eventually we decided to head more downtown, to Osaka Station.
This was an excellent idea! Just outside the station, on a large pedestrian overpass, were a couple Japanese rock bands giving a free live show! We stayed to watch for well over an hour (there were 2 bands, not playing at the same time, unlike some places in Japan. Speaking of which, anyone know where the park where all the bands play in is? I love live music (except Country).). Anton took way too many pictures, but got some good shots (below) and I bought the one band’s (Kaede) CD, and even got my picture taken with them! Very cool…
Kaede is having another live show next Saturday in Osaka, me and Anton are thinking of going, if anyone in the Osaka area wants to join…
Next we went for lunch… Anton tried to force me to finish, but as all who know me know, I have a small stomach, /sigh. Was good, I got katsudon, but raw egg tastes a bit weird. Oh yeah, you order by vending machine, then take your ticket to the counter, I thought this was quite cool. Then we went to the Osaka Science Museum, which was a bit lame… not very unique, and we couldn’t read anything anyway. And having taken three years of electrical engineering, I didn’t learn anything. But we got some good pictures (of me sticking my head in a magnetic field).
Near the museum we saw some semi-engrish, the following street sign:
Now at first glance you may think this sign means "Ok, if you’re with children, hold their hand"… but then you notice, hmm, it looks like the girl is either struggling to get away, or perhaps dancing? Her dress is also quite short. Then you notice the weirdest bit; the man has tentacle arms! And they’re unequal length! And what the heck’s he wearing?! No, something’s not right here! Not right at all!!!
Anton says "Some signs are better left uninterpreted." But what’s the fun in that?
Anton wanted to stop at an internet café to check his email, hoping Tongxin (from the Co-op Japan program) emailed him. Tongxin works at Sanyo in Osaka, and she was supposed to have arrived a few days before. We were kinda hoping to meet here in Osaka…
But first, we saw this fancy pants bit of Engrish outside the Metro Media Café:
By the way, the only Special Memories Anton got was getting ripped off…390 yen just to check his email.
Still completely without a (logical/workable/sane) plan, and without an email from Tongxin, we did what any normal person would do… we went to her neighbourhood and try to find her randomly! What? You say that’s not what a normal person would do? You’re right, sue us.
So yeah, after asking around where Sanyo was located, we headed to where we thought Tongxin may be. Got near to the Sanyo building and actually passed by the dormitory… so we went floor by floor seeing if Tongxin’s name was on any of the doors. I told Anton he gets 50 million bonus points if his super Random Meeting Gaijin Powers led us to Tongxin.
No luck at the dorm, but Anton won 30 million a few minutes later: A few doors down was a man outside a restaurant, Anton asked if there were any other Sanyo dorm buildings around. He explained our situation, and it turned out that Tongxin may have been there the previous night! The man knew someone who worked at Sanyo. He called the person, and let Anton talk to her; turns out she knew Tongxin! Wow, the likelyhood of this is… wait! Was there an Infinite Improbability Drive nearby? Was that creepy street sign warning us of Zaphod Beeblebrox? Am I going off on some tangent here?
Anyways, the lady (Tomoe-san) actually came down to the restaurant (she lived close) to talk to us in person. Unfortunately, she couldn’t contact Tongxin and wasn’t able to tell us where she lived (for obvious reasons), but we gave her a note to give to Tongxin. We invited us to have dinner with us, she declined dinner but stayed and talked with us while we ate. She spent nearly 3 hours talking to us, teaching us some Japanese while we helped her practice English. It was very cool.
The restaurant was also quite good, very small, 3 tables and a bar, but extremely nice inside. It’s actually owned by Tomoe-san’s mother in law… even more coincidences! Dinner was the specialty, basically fried, squid filled doughballs. Not really something I’m used to but managed to eat it all, it was pretty good.
By this time it was well after 9, and a long trip back home. I didn’t have much chance meeting curfew even, so I stayed at Anton’s for the night.
Two weeks down, 40 more to go… aaaah, time’s going so fast! So much to do!
Oh, side note, Music in Japan!!!
Music in Japan is quite unique… some of it (J-pop or J-rock) is quite good, but there’s a lot of music borrowed from the US… let me recap the most interesting musical selections.
The Electronics Store Theme Song – Written by the devil maybe? Pure torture!
Auld Lang Syne – Yes the New Year’s Song, I heard it in Joshin (similar to Future Shop in Canada).
Ice Candy! – We saw this ad in a store, it had very annoying music plus one of the weirdest videos ever… and it looped every 10 seconds o.O
My Grandfather’s Clock – In Japanese, playing in my dorm lobby at lunchtime…
And the most important… my office has music playing in the background. A lot of it is American music, minus the actual lyrics (just the music). I’ve heard (at least once):
Culture Club (Karma Chameleon and Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?), Queen, Disney (Whole New World, Under the Sea), Uptown Girls, and the Macarena!
Also, Friday afternoon had me listening to 3 hours of accordion music… /cry.
Second side note, cause Anton forgot... we saw our first really big person on the train in Osaka. He was big enough to be a sumo wrestler... and he had a very funny haircut too! But he was too far away to take a picture...
Third side note, which involves me making a bad joke… but since Anton has already posted it… In Japan, certain train cars are designated as ladies-only during rush hour. As many of you know, there has been a problem with ladies being groped on the train when it’s super busy, so these trains were set up to reduce the problem. This sign is on the platform so people know where the train cars are.
I suggested that that would make a good welcome mat for Anton’s apartment ><.
It’s now Monday night, and the World Cup game is on, Japan vs Australia. Sounds exciting, think I’ll go watch for a bit. Next blog probably next Sunday, after Osaka Adventure Vol 2.
But anyway, that’s later on, I prefer to write my adventures in semi-chronological order so as not to confuse anyone (including myself).
First, I should mention work this past week… but not too in depth, I don’t want to violate the confidentiality agreement in my contract (or bore you all, this blog will be loooong)… I have 4 themes I’ll be working with during my 10 months here, and the first is improving upon a video memory circuit board. Only I don’t really know what I’m supposed to be doing. My first assignment is to check over the board, the circuitry, the signal, the VHDL code… only it’s not a very big job for the time I’m given to work on it. So maybe I’m doing something wrong? Or maybe I’m just prostar? I’ll let you all decide! I’m also helping a co-worker on one of his assignments, which involves me analyzing a nasty circuit diagram and figuring out what’s goin on.
Had another Monday meeting today, which means sitting for two hours, listening to things I can’t understand, and mostly trying not to sleep. Also, I’m supposed to describe what I did the past week (in Japanese).
Work’s not bad, it seems very independent, so I’m never sure if I’m going about it the right way. Anyway, not much happens after work during the week, I get home between 5:30 and 6. They tell me to leave if I’m not gone by then, not like poor Anton, who works till 9 every night. I have decided to devote 1-2 hours every night to learning Japanese… and I try to learn a bit at work too online.
Now to the good part of my blog… Osaka Adventure Vol. 1!
On Saturday Anton and I, armed with everything but my camera and a plan (both would have been good to have), went to Osaka for the day! First off, I would like to give a big thanks to Mr. Anton for letting me steal his pictures for my own use! So anyone reading the planetcjp blog gets to see the amazing pictures twice, lucky you!
We decided to meet in Nara instead of Osaka, seeing as how neither of us know Osaka at all, and didn’t want to get separated before we even met. So I went down to Yamato-sadaiji station and then we both headed towards Osaka.
We had our first… umm… experience?… within a few minutes of leaving; an older man (probably 50ish) started talking to us on the train, practicing his English. He asked where we were from, where we worked, our hobbies, all good. He said he had been to Canada (Banff of course). Eventually the topic turned to Onsen (for those who don’t know, Onsen are hot springs that you basically go in to bathe… naked… with other people. They’re supposed to be really good, and I’ll have to try one sometime.) . The older guy told us he likes to visit the Onsen once a week, and that since Anton lives close, he should come with him sometime! Perhaps on Sunday? He even offered to pick Anton up! Now coming from North America, this seems rather disturbing, but maybe it’s normal in Japan to be asked by strangers to go to Onsen? Thinking of how weird this was kept us laughing all day.
*Note: Asking the people at my dorm, and Anton asking at his work, this is considered weird even for Japan. Just so you know…
Next we went to Nipponbashi, Osaka’s electronics district. Interesting place, saw a store that sold miso paste, another that sold old photographs. We passed by a bookstore, Anton decided to go in. "Seems like most of the books in this store are about travelling" he says… look up, I says. The shelf above is loaded with a lot of porn books. Porn is rather, umm, accessible here. People had stands set up on the street with porn videos. Normal video stores had large cardboard cutouts of the very famous Razor Ramon Hard Gay. And yet, all their porn is censored apparently. Very odd…
We wandered around there in circles for a few hours. Anton needed some camera supplies (lens case and mem card), and he needed to change some dollars to Yen. Not sure where the bank was, he asked a lady at the department store, who was nice enough to take us halfway across the mall to the foreign exchange bank! That’d never happen in Canada. We also found Kitchen Alley (least that’s my name for it)… a long back street with every store selling miscellaneous cooking and kitchen supplies. Anton suggested that if I ever get fired from work (say from breaking the confidentiality clause), I should open up a sausage stand in Kyoto! It’s a great idea of course, Anton even found a good apron for me to wear! He suggested the blue, but I think the orange one woulda been better.
Eventually we decided to head more downtown, to Osaka Station.
This was an excellent idea! Just outside the station, on a large pedestrian overpass, were a couple Japanese rock bands giving a free live show! We stayed to watch for well over an hour (there were 2 bands, not playing at the same time, unlike some places in Japan. Speaking of which, anyone know where the park where all the bands play in is? I love live music (except Country).). Anton took way too many pictures, but got some good shots (below) and I bought the one band’s (Kaede) CD, and even got my picture taken with them! Very cool…
Kaede is having another live show next Saturday in Osaka, me and Anton are thinking of going, if anyone in the Osaka area wants to join…
Next we went for lunch… Anton tried to force me to finish, but as all who know me know, I have a small stomach, /sigh. Was good, I got katsudon, but raw egg tastes a bit weird. Oh yeah, you order by vending machine, then take your ticket to the counter, I thought this was quite cool. Then we went to the Osaka Science Museum, which was a bit lame… not very unique, and we couldn’t read anything anyway. And having taken three years of electrical engineering, I didn’t learn anything. But we got some good pictures (of me sticking my head in a magnetic field).
Near the museum we saw some semi-engrish, the following street sign:
Now at first glance you may think this sign means "Ok, if you’re with children, hold their hand"… but then you notice, hmm, it looks like the girl is either struggling to get away, or perhaps dancing? Her dress is also quite short. Then you notice the weirdest bit; the man has tentacle arms! And they’re unequal length! And what the heck’s he wearing?! No, something’s not right here! Not right at all!!!
Anton says "Some signs are better left uninterpreted." But what’s the fun in that?
Anton wanted to stop at an internet café to check his email, hoping Tongxin (from the Co-op Japan program) emailed him. Tongxin works at Sanyo in Osaka, and she was supposed to have arrived a few days before. We were kinda hoping to meet here in Osaka…
But first, we saw this fancy pants bit of Engrish outside the Metro Media Café:
By the way, the only Special Memories Anton got was getting ripped off…390 yen just to check his email.
Still completely without a (logical/workable/sane) plan, and without an email from Tongxin, we did what any normal person would do… we went to her neighbourhood and try to find her randomly! What? You say that’s not what a normal person would do? You’re right, sue us.
So yeah, after asking around where Sanyo was located, we headed to where we thought Tongxin may be. Got near to the Sanyo building and actually passed by the dormitory… so we went floor by floor seeing if Tongxin’s name was on any of the doors. I told Anton he gets 50 million bonus points if his super Random Meeting Gaijin Powers led us to Tongxin.
No luck at the dorm, but Anton won 30 million a few minutes later: A few doors down was a man outside a restaurant, Anton asked if there were any other Sanyo dorm buildings around. He explained our situation, and it turned out that Tongxin may have been there the previous night! The man knew someone who worked at Sanyo. He called the person, and let Anton talk to her; turns out she knew Tongxin! Wow, the likelyhood of this is… wait! Was there an Infinite Improbability Drive nearby? Was that creepy street sign warning us of Zaphod Beeblebrox? Am I going off on some tangent here?
Anyways, the lady (Tomoe-san) actually came down to the restaurant (she lived close) to talk to us in person. Unfortunately, she couldn’t contact Tongxin and wasn’t able to tell us where she lived (for obvious reasons), but we gave her a note to give to Tongxin. We invited us to have dinner with us, she declined dinner but stayed and talked with us while we ate. She spent nearly 3 hours talking to us, teaching us some Japanese while we helped her practice English. It was very cool.
The restaurant was also quite good, very small, 3 tables and a bar, but extremely nice inside. It’s actually owned by Tomoe-san’s mother in law… even more coincidences! Dinner was the specialty, basically fried, squid filled doughballs. Not really something I’m used to but managed to eat it all, it was pretty good.
By this time it was well after 9, and a long trip back home. I didn’t have much chance meeting curfew even, so I stayed at Anton’s for the night.
Two weeks down, 40 more to go… aaaah, time’s going so fast! So much to do!
Oh, side note, Music in Japan!!!
Music in Japan is quite unique… some of it (J-pop or J-rock) is quite good, but there’s a lot of music borrowed from the US… let me recap the most interesting musical selections.
The Electronics Store Theme Song – Written by the devil maybe? Pure torture!
Auld Lang Syne – Yes the New Year’s Song, I heard it in Joshin (similar to Future Shop in Canada).
Ice Candy! – We saw this ad in a store, it had very annoying music plus one of the weirdest videos ever… and it looped every 10 seconds o.O
My Grandfather’s Clock – In Japanese, playing in my dorm lobby at lunchtime…
And the most important… my office has music playing in the background. A lot of it is American music, minus the actual lyrics (just the music). I’ve heard (at least once):
Culture Club (Karma Chameleon and Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?), Queen, Disney (Whole New World, Under the Sea), Uptown Girls, and the Macarena!
Also, Friday afternoon had me listening to 3 hours of accordion music… /cry.
Second side note, cause Anton forgot... we saw our first really big person on the train in Osaka. He was big enough to be a sumo wrestler... and he had a very funny haircut too! But he was too far away to take a picture...
Third side note, which involves me making a bad joke… but since Anton has already posted it… In Japan, certain train cars are designated as ladies-only during rush hour. As many of you know, there has been a problem with ladies being groped on the train when it’s super busy, so these trains were set up to reduce the problem. This sign is on the platform so people know where the train cars are.
I suggested that that would make a good welcome mat for Anton’s apartment ><.
It’s now Monday night, and the World Cup game is on, Japan vs Australia. Sounds exciting, think I’ll go watch for a bit. Next blog probably next Sunday, after Osaka Adventure Vol 2.
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
From Now On, I’ll Connect the Dots My Own Way
Two posts in one day!?! Yes way! Figured I'd post again, since Link had another adventure. This morning I went alone to Toji Temple. Well, Toji Temple was the final destination, but I also got to see a few things on the way there. First off is Kyoto Station… this building is impressive; not only is it huge, but it’s also clean, and well designed, and looks very cool… and it just occurred to me that I didn’t take a single picture of it. Well, I’ll leave you in suspense, and take pictures the next time I’m down there, which should be often enough. Also along the way I passed Umekoji Park, which was quite nice.
Oh yeah, I tried some Pocari Sweat today. It was quite good for being named after… well… sweat. It was an Ion Supply drink whatever that means, but I feel much healthier and ionized after drinking it.
Ok, onto Toji Temple… Toji Temple is famous for its five-storied pagoda. It is the highest pagoda in Japan, 187 feet. It was originally build in 826AD and burned down four times due to lightning. The current pagoda was built in 1644, so roughly 350 years ago. There are also 3 other famous buildings in this park that were interesting to see as well.
On the way home someone took a picture of me, for no reason! I was minding my own business waiting for a train; I see a flash, look around, and there’s an older Japanese man in the train with a camera pointed straight at me. It was hard not to laugh. And if any of my Calgary friends say what I think they’re gonna say, they’ll be given a 1000 Years of Pain kancho when I get back… you’ve been warned!
Went to the supermarket by myself too today… it’s not easy trying to buy food when you have absolutely no clue what it is, so I went safe and got recognizable items, bananas, bread, juice, milk, etc… Melons are indeed expensive here, there were small melons that cost 15 bucks.
Unfortunately for you guys I have a very good sense of direction, which means I didn’t get lost or have any weird adventures in the wrong side of Kyoto today. Maybe next time…
Oh yeah, I tried some Pocari Sweat today. It was quite good for being named after… well… sweat. It was an Ion Supply drink whatever that means, but I feel much healthier and ionized after drinking it.
Ok, onto Toji Temple… Toji Temple is famous for its five-storied pagoda. It is the highest pagoda in Japan, 187 feet. It was originally build in 826AD and burned down four times due to lightning. The current pagoda was built in 1644, so roughly 350 years ago. There are also 3 other famous buildings in this park that were interesting to see as well.On the way home someone took a picture of me, for no reason! I was minding my own business waiting for a train; I see a flash, look around, and there’s an older Japanese man in the train with a camera pointed straight at me. It was hard not to laugh. And if any of my Calgary friends say what I think they’re gonna say, they’ll be given a 1000 Years of Pain kancho when I get back… you’ve been warned!
Went to the supermarket by myself too today… it’s not easy trying to buy food when you have absolutely no clue what it is, so I went safe and got recognizable items, bananas, bread, juice, milk, etc… Melons are indeed expensive here, there were small melons that cost 15 bucks.
Unfortunately for you guys I have a very good sense of direction, which means I didn’t get lost or have any weird adventures in the wrong side of Kyoto today. Maybe next time…
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