That's what you're greeted with whenever you walk into a store here. The word is "irashaimase" and it basically means "welcome", but it's all slurred together into a one or two syllable word and yelled at you. Nothing like strangers screaming at you to make you feel welcome.
Weather has sucked since I got back from Fukuoka, so waiting for a break to go hiking. I did go downtown today, and got me some Filet o' Fish from McDonald's. It's the least fish-like fish product I can get in Japan, and I went for it. That seems really stupid.
There were also two guys in the underpass playing guitar. The past 5 times I went to town there was a guy down there, and neither of these kids were him so this was a nice change of pace for me to throw money at a different person for once.
Another thing that I'm having trouble finding: microwaveable popcorn. It's not something I would really even think about, but I'm sick of pringles, ritz crackers, and random bread treats, so I figured I'd have some popcorn, and I can only find that prepopped crap. Unless it's that awesome white cheddar stuff or it comes in a 6 foot long thin plastic tube from Big Lots, then I'm not eating prepopped popcorn.
I'm American, dammit. We have standards.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Friday, February 27, 2009
158 of 158 Images Uploaded
Haha oh wow. Do you expect me to comment on all of them? Well good beca- wait, you do expect me to comment on all of them? Well screw that! Either way, though, I feel I owe a long blog. So let's get crackin.
I left early Monday morning, not entirely sure what I was doing. The cafeteria wasn't open yet, and I was dining on an exquisite makeshift breakfast of ritz crackers and Pepsi. As I said, exquisite. When I walked to the highway bus station, I went straight to the info counter and asked the woman what the hell I was supposed to do (except in less of a vernacular, mostly due to my lack of impolite speech knowledge in Japanese than for a lack of desire of wanting to insult the staff) and she politely obliged by telling me that this is not where I want to be. Through a combination of my limited Japanese and the international language of pointing at things, we came to the conclusion that I needed to walk over to the next bus station up the hill and wait there. Same service, different stop. Oh.
So continuing up the hill, I'm still hungry and I grab some apple juice because why not. I figured that this would tide me over til I got to Fukuoka. Unfortunately, the bus was a good 15 minutes late, and as these things work, I was entirely capable of stopping in the bus station and getting some actual food in me, but for fear of missing the bus that just wasn't gonna fly. So myself and three strangers delighted in conversation about the state of things and where our destinations lie.
Or we just stood there in awkward silence avoiding eye contact and miserably waiting in the heavy winds for the bus to show up.
The bus was nice. Spacious, and not many people on board. Plus there was a movie playing for the ride, and headphones that were available for us that I wasn't informed of til my second trip, so I watched an entire movie without sound on the way there. It was a pretty good movie, but it seemed like it jumped around a bit. Also it had the obligatory Japanese girl is secretly a government created organic supercomputer that controls a war-sub plotline. YAWN.
Here's a picture from the bus:
That last one is from right into Fukuoka. The whole trip last a bit over 2 hours, so all in all not bad, and I could still feel my butt afterwards so that's always an indication that I hadn't been sitting too long. Although I apparently had my leg resting on the "Please stop!" button the whole ride without realizing it, and managed NOT to set it off, which is a feat amongst itself.
The first act after leaving the bus was to get some damn food inside of me. So I went to a random ramen shop, and kind of walked in dumbfounded. I guess Beppu has enough western influence for the shops to still be kind of user friendly, but in Fukuoka you're supposed to just sort of sit down and hope somebody notices you. I know places like that exist in the US, but I don't go to those places because they suck and are for jerks. Jerks like you maybe, but not for me. I immediately burned my tongue beyond repair on the ramen when it was served, rendering my taste buds relatively ineffective for the majority of the trip. Dang.
Then I wasted time in the arcade like a moron. "Hey! I'm in a different city for a couple days, what should I do? I know! Play video games!" There was a Half Life 2 sort of immersive... pod....thing..... and that was pretty cool, I must admit.
I really only had three goals in Fukuoka: Go to the Robosquare, Go to the ACROS building, and eat some food. Eating food is basically a day to day goal for me, but I felt like including it anyways. I feel that it's important. Out of those things I managed to get to the ACROS building and eat some food on the first day.
Here's the ACROS building.
Yeah, it's pretty big. The front is a garden stairway maze... thing. It was closed when I went there so I figured I'd go back and try again the next day, but I did go inside and it sort of was what you'd expect it to be. Soft decor with orchestrated music playing over the loudspeaker. I got me a milkshake and walked around the place taking it in. Was nice.
Afterwards I really wanted to see the Robosquare but because I'm a moron and figured I'd just wander around til I found things, I didn't actually have a map or an idea of where to find it. It was actually remarkable that I found the ACROS building in the first place. I knew it was in Tenjin but had no idea where it was exactly. I've deduced that I have the blessing of Uncanny Cosmic Coincidence. Even if I don't know where I'm going, I will either find it or find myself in a location that will aid me in finding it. I got lost and wound up finding a road sign pointing to Tenjin and followed it.
Similarly, when I wanted to find my hostel, I had no idea where I was, and I wandered far enough in the right direction to find a bus marked in the direction of the station that I knew the hostel was close to.
And then instead of taking the bus, I walked there. Because I am an idiot.
The station info woman was really nice, and I thought I confused her by sayin hostel. I didn't actually know the word for it and my dictionary didn't have it in there, so I just said "hosuteru" and she smiled and gave me a sideways glance, then started rummaging through things under her desk. As I meagerly tried to explain what it was in sparse, confused wordings, she produced a flyer that had a map from the station and room fees for the hostel that I was looking for. Awesome.
The hostel was also easy to get to. About three blocks away, and the guy who checked me in spoke really good English. I got stuck in a dorm room because I didn't care to pay more, and there were two bunk beds and little space. There was a Canadian guy in there named David who was friendly enough, and then I left to see if I could find something to do.
I didn't, but Fukuoka is pretty at night, so there's that.
When I got back my roommate was sleeping so I decided I should be nice and sleep too instead of waking him up. The room was unlocked, so I locked it, and there was a key on my bunk for some reason, so I put that on the desk.
About two hours later somebody tried opening the door and knocking hard. Turns out there was a THIRD guy in the room that I wasn't informed about, and I had locked him out. Aaah.... my bad. He seemed more confused than upset though, and promptly settled in, turning the light in and making a bunch of noise, but hey, public rooms, you take what you can get. The place is called Khaosan in case anybody cares. As far as hostels go I'd imagine that it's pretty nice. The beds are pretty comfortable, there is a fridge, there is free internet and a kitchen, etc. All the people there are really friendly as well, so that's good.
Second day!
Woke up almost too late, got dressed, and jetted. Nabbed some food from a place called Jet Diner which had some pretty good American diner style food, no worse than the kind you'd get on the highway in the states, really. About the same price, unfortunately, but I was hungry and I was on vacation, so it's forgivable. Although they did give me coleslaw, and they should be grateful that I spared them for that affront.
I went back to the ACROS to try my hand at conquering my fears by climbing to the top of a building and hanging over the guard rail. Unfortunately my pseudo-cide was thwarted by the maze being closed due to inclement weather. It had rained a bit granted, but what's dangerous about climbing 12 story staircases when they're coated in rainwater and loose soil?
I will NEVER understand the Japanese.
Using my crude hand drawn map of the area around the ROBOSQUARE TNC Building, I began making my way in an arbitary direction, because I wasn't a damn tic near the location on the map. I was actually so far in a direction not there that I couldn't even guess where that was. So, disappointed I decided looking for more things to do. I eventually came across the ruins of some castle who's name I forgot to write down and also don't feel like looking up. They were pretty cool, though, and I don't recall them being on any of the tourist information that I looked at so it was actually a really pleasantly surprising find.
I was actually debating taking a nap on a bench I found there, but there were crows there. Lots of crows. And the less I moved, the more of them there were. And crows travel in murders. So I opted to get up and leave.
Also: Look at these ducks! Look at how many freaking ducks there are! So many ducks! It's madness! Cute, sleeping, numerous ducks!
After leaving the raven haven, I saw a big pointy tower...thing. You can see it in this picture:
That's a bit closer than when I first saw it, but it's the same tower, on the left of the picture. I was under the impression that it was the Fukuoka Tower that I had heard mention of, and not having any better ideas I decided to head there. And it was another long walk. I passed a Hard Rock Cafe and the Yahoo Dome on the way there, and there were a group of buff white guys talking. I'm assuming they were part of the local baseball team. They sort of looked at me like they were expecting me to approach them, but I honestly couldn't care less about that non-sport, so I ignored them and took some photos of the area.
I did make it over to the tower, and I guessed right on that pointy number being it. Here's a shot from the bottom of it.
And one from the top.
It was 600 yen admission to the tower, and they gave me an in depth tourists guide with a map of the city, some coupons and some useful Japanese phrases. Oh, great, I guess they assume this is everyone's first stop. Dammit.
Anyways, the top of the tower was really nice, but there was no toilet. I feel the need to inform you because they felt the need to inform me. There was also a sign there that showed where on the horizon respective countries were, and how far away they were.
About an inch in from the top left, follow that 11,500 kilometers and then you're in California. Standing there actually made me feel really lonely. I'm on top of the world looking into infinity, and I still can't see home.
Also, I took a photo of my reflection for those of you who desperately need to see pictures of me:
And then got some ice cream on the way down from the tower, because I don't know how to stop spending money. Yowza! Was really good ice cream, though, and had two sticks of pocky in it. It was twist but one of the sticks was strawberry. This irritates my inner OCD. Vanilla pocky exists in Japan, but for some reason nobody likes it.
I did find Robosquare right after that, as it was about a block away from Fukuoka Tower. It was... lackluster. The tour guides made it seem like a wonderful park full of robots that you can play with and that danced for you. They did do that. Sort of. There were scheduled shows that were basically glorified puppet shows for kids, and there were robots on display with "Do Not Touch!" signs all over them. Although I did get to play with a Pleo dinosaur thing, which was neat, and some Indian(possibly?) girl was working there that they sent over to assist me in English. She was really nice, and I felt bad for half blowing her off due to my exhaustion from walking around all of Fukuoka. Not at the time, mind you, what with the exhaustion and all. But in retrospect.
I took a bus back to Tenjin station, because according to the wonderful map I got from the Tower, that is where I wanted to go to find my bus home. Unfortunately it was about that helpful, because I didn't want Tenjin station, I wanted Neshitetsu Tenjin Station, which wasn't on the map exactly. In its place was Fukuoka Station, so I assumed a name change and looked around, only to realize that it was a subway station, not a bus station. Confused beyond my normal levels, I tried to rationalize this, and decided stalking a businessman to his next location would work. And again through my Uncanny Cosmic Coincidence, following him led my upstairs to the secret bus station on the third floor that isn't mentioned on the map for some reason because Fukuoka is run by dumb meanies. So remember, kids. If you're lost, be sure to follow strange men around until they lead you to where you need to be!
Having about an hour to kill before the next bus, I decided I'd spend most of that looking around for the electronics store I had found the night before with a good deal on some portable hard drives that I could use. Honestly, I ran into this place three times the night before and I could not find it when I wanted to go there. Last second I did find it, got my HD, nabbed a sandwich from McDonald's, hopped the bus, and enjoyed the movie.
This was a Hama-chan movie. Which I'm pretty sure is a line of movies similar to Steve Martin or something, in that this guy used to be funny, but he just kept making movies until people stopped caring anymore. This one started off with him getting the entire office building together into a musical number. That right there sets the mood for fantastic. Then he gets home and his son complains to him about how this kid at school has all this cool stuff that he doesn't, so Hama-chan is all "Well come on, you gotta have something that he doesn't," so his son replies with "Hmmm.... yeah! A hot mom!" Which apparently isn't weird at all. In response, Hama-chan hugs his son, tosses him out the door and locks him outside, then breaks into song which proceeds into him making love to his wife for a good 12 seconds while magic papiér-maché fish float around and words pop up on screen making fun of his short endurance.
I'm entirely serious.
Then he gets sick of work, goes on vacation and gets drunk with some token black guy. He gets SO drunk, in fact, that he winds up on a US Navy ship passed out in one of the random rooms. Turns out his token black friend is in the navy, and they all got so drunk he wound up there. The rest of the movie involves him trying to get off the boat and going crazy, using an American flag to catch fish that scream and get him caught, and he goes home, and gets a promotion and everyone loves him so on so forth.
Really Japan.
Anyways, I missed my stop through all that. Actually, I didn't miss it so much as I had a dumb moment or a combination of my dumbness and the bus driver hating me. Whenever we got to a stop, the bus driver would announce the name of the place, then stop the bus, then get off and wait to help people unload. He didn't actually say the name of my bus, he said "Thank you" and then stopped the bus and got out. I honestly thought he was just checking the tire or something. By the time I realized it I was in downtown Beppu and had to waste a ticket just to get back to campus.
Yargh.
Ah well, the whole trip was fun. Aside from the hostel guy and the girl at the Robosquare I managed to go a whole two days living in another city, entirely in Japanese, and not having any problems doing so. I'd say that's a pretty good indication that I'm at least at the level that I need to be, and I'm pretty proud of that I'd say. I'd look forward to doing it again, maybe not at the same place, but definitely again.
Check out the photo album, as I said there are a bunch of photos there now. Not necessarily from Fukuoka, but most of them are.
Updates should be regular again now, and apparently everyone checks this on Saturday (correct me if I'm wrong) so I'll be making those posts count more if I can. Look forward to that.
I left early Monday morning, not entirely sure what I was doing. The cafeteria wasn't open yet, and I was dining on an exquisite makeshift breakfast of ritz crackers and Pepsi. As I said, exquisite. When I walked to the highway bus station, I went straight to the info counter and asked the woman what the hell I was supposed to do (except in less of a vernacular, mostly due to my lack of impolite speech knowledge in Japanese than for a lack of desire of wanting to insult the staff) and she politely obliged by telling me that this is not where I want to be. Through a combination of my limited Japanese and the international language of pointing at things, we came to the conclusion that I needed to walk over to the next bus station up the hill and wait there. Same service, different stop. Oh.
So continuing up the hill, I'm still hungry and I grab some apple juice because why not. I figured that this would tide me over til I got to Fukuoka. Unfortunately, the bus was a good 15 minutes late, and as these things work, I was entirely capable of stopping in the bus station and getting some actual food in me, but for fear of missing the bus that just wasn't gonna fly. So myself and three strangers delighted in conversation about the state of things and where our destinations lie.
Or we just stood there in awkward silence avoiding eye contact and miserably waiting in the heavy winds for the bus to show up.
The bus was nice. Spacious, and not many people on board. Plus there was a movie playing for the ride, and headphones that were available for us that I wasn't informed of til my second trip, so I watched an entire movie without sound on the way there. It was a pretty good movie, but it seemed like it jumped around a bit. Also it had the obligatory Japanese girl is secretly a government created organic supercomputer that controls a war-sub plotline. YAWN.
Here's a picture from the bus:
That last one is from right into Fukuoka. The whole trip last a bit over 2 hours, so all in all not bad, and I could still feel my butt afterwards so that's always an indication that I hadn't been sitting too long. Although I apparently had my leg resting on the "Please stop!" button the whole ride without realizing it, and managed NOT to set it off, which is a feat amongst itself.
The first act after leaving the bus was to get some damn food inside of me. So I went to a random ramen shop, and kind of walked in dumbfounded. I guess Beppu has enough western influence for the shops to still be kind of user friendly, but in Fukuoka you're supposed to just sort of sit down and hope somebody notices you. I know places like that exist in the US, but I don't go to those places because they suck and are for jerks. Jerks like you maybe, but not for me. I immediately burned my tongue beyond repair on the ramen when it was served, rendering my taste buds relatively ineffective for the majority of the trip. Dang.
Then I wasted time in the arcade like a moron. "Hey! I'm in a different city for a couple days, what should I do? I know! Play video games!" There was a Half Life 2 sort of immersive... pod....thing..... and that was pretty cool, I must admit.
I really only had three goals in Fukuoka: Go to the Robosquare, Go to the ACROS building, and eat some food. Eating food is basically a day to day goal for me, but I felt like including it anyways. I feel that it's important. Out of those things I managed to get to the ACROS building and eat some food on the first day.
Here's the ACROS building.
Yeah, it's pretty big. The front is a garden stairway maze... thing. It was closed when I went there so I figured I'd go back and try again the next day, but I did go inside and it sort of was what you'd expect it to be. Soft decor with orchestrated music playing over the loudspeaker. I got me a milkshake and walked around the place taking it in. Was nice.
Afterwards I really wanted to see the Robosquare but because I'm a moron and figured I'd just wander around til I found things, I didn't actually have a map or an idea of where to find it. It was actually remarkable that I found the ACROS building in the first place. I knew it was in Tenjin but had no idea where it was exactly. I've deduced that I have the blessing of Uncanny Cosmic Coincidence. Even if I don't know where I'm going, I will either find it or find myself in a location that will aid me in finding it. I got lost and wound up finding a road sign pointing to Tenjin and followed it.
Similarly, when I wanted to find my hostel, I had no idea where I was, and I wandered far enough in the right direction to find a bus marked in the direction of the station that I knew the hostel was close to.
And then instead of taking the bus, I walked there. Because I am an idiot.
The station info woman was really nice, and I thought I confused her by sayin hostel. I didn't actually know the word for it and my dictionary didn't have it in there, so I just said "hosuteru" and she smiled and gave me a sideways glance, then started rummaging through things under her desk. As I meagerly tried to explain what it was in sparse, confused wordings, she produced a flyer that had a map from the station and room fees for the hostel that I was looking for. Awesome.
The hostel was also easy to get to. About three blocks away, and the guy who checked me in spoke really good English. I got stuck in a dorm room because I didn't care to pay more, and there were two bunk beds and little space. There was a Canadian guy in there named David who was friendly enough, and then I left to see if I could find something to do.
I didn't, but Fukuoka is pretty at night, so there's that.
When I got back my roommate was sleeping so I decided I should be nice and sleep too instead of waking him up. The room was unlocked, so I locked it, and there was a key on my bunk for some reason, so I put that on the desk.
About two hours later somebody tried opening the door and knocking hard. Turns out there was a THIRD guy in the room that I wasn't informed about, and I had locked him out. Aaah.... my bad. He seemed more confused than upset though, and promptly settled in, turning the light in and making a bunch of noise, but hey, public rooms, you take what you can get. The place is called Khaosan in case anybody cares. As far as hostels go I'd imagine that it's pretty nice. The beds are pretty comfortable, there is a fridge, there is free internet and a kitchen, etc. All the people there are really friendly as well, so that's good.
Second day!
Woke up almost too late, got dressed, and jetted. Nabbed some food from a place called Jet Diner which had some pretty good American diner style food, no worse than the kind you'd get on the highway in the states, really. About the same price, unfortunately, but I was hungry and I was on vacation, so it's forgivable. Although they did give me coleslaw, and they should be grateful that I spared them for that affront.
I went back to the ACROS to try my hand at conquering my fears by climbing to the top of a building and hanging over the guard rail. Unfortunately my pseudo-cide was thwarted by the maze being closed due to inclement weather. It had rained a bit granted, but what's dangerous about climbing 12 story staircases when they're coated in rainwater and loose soil?
I will NEVER understand the Japanese.
Using my crude hand drawn map of the area around the ROBOSQUARE TNC Building, I began making my way in an arbitary direction, because I wasn't a damn tic near the location on the map. I was actually so far in a direction not there that I couldn't even guess where that was. So, disappointed I decided looking for more things to do. I eventually came across the ruins of some castle who's name I forgot to write down and also don't feel like looking up. They were pretty cool, though, and I don't recall them being on any of the tourist information that I looked at so it was actually a really pleasantly surprising find.
I was actually debating taking a nap on a bench I found there, but there were crows there. Lots of crows. And the less I moved, the more of them there were. And crows travel in murders. So I opted to get up and leave.
Also: Look at these ducks! Look at how many freaking ducks there are! So many ducks! It's madness! Cute, sleeping, numerous ducks!
After leaving the raven haven, I saw a big pointy tower...thing. You can see it in this picture:
That's a bit closer than when I first saw it, but it's the same tower, on the left of the picture. I was under the impression that it was the Fukuoka Tower that I had heard mention of, and not having any better ideas I decided to head there. And it was another long walk. I passed a Hard Rock Cafe and the Yahoo Dome on the way there, and there were a group of buff white guys talking. I'm assuming they were part of the local baseball team. They sort of looked at me like they were expecting me to approach them, but I honestly couldn't care less about that non-sport, so I ignored them and took some photos of the area.
I did make it over to the tower, and I guessed right on that pointy number being it. Here's a shot from the bottom of it.
And one from the top.
It was 600 yen admission to the tower, and they gave me an in depth tourists guide with a map of the city, some coupons and some useful Japanese phrases. Oh, great, I guess they assume this is everyone's first stop. Dammit.
Anyways, the top of the tower was really nice, but there was no toilet. I feel the need to inform you because they felt the need to inform me. There was also a sign there that showed where on the horizon respective countries were, and how far away they were.
About an inch in from the top left, follow that 11,500 kilometers and then you're in California. Standing there actually made me feel really lonely. I'm on top of the world looking into infinity, and I still can't see home.
Also, I took a photo of my reflection for those of you who desperately need to see pictures of me:
And then got some ice cream on the way down from the tower, because I don't know how to stop spending money. Yowza! Was really good ice cream, though, and had two sticks of pocky in it. It was twist but one of the sticks was strawberry. This irritates my inner OCD. Vanilla pocky exists in Japan, but for some reason nobody likes it.
I did find Robosquare right after that, as it was about a block away from Fukuoka Tower. It was... lackluster. The tour guides made it seem like a wonderful park full of robots that you can play with and that danced for you. They did do that. Sort of. There were scheduled shows that were basically glorified puppet shows for kids, and there were robots on display with "Do Not Touch!" signs all over them. Although I did get to play with a Pleo dinosaur thing, which was neat, and some Indian(possibly?) girl was working there that they sent over to assist me in English. She was really nice, and I felt bad for half blowing her off due to my exhaustion from walking around all of Fukuoka. Not at the time, mind you, what with the exhaustion and all. But in retrospect.
I took a bus back to Tenjin station, because according to the wonderful map I got from the Tower, that is where I wanted to go to find my bus home. Unfortunately it was about that helpful, because I didn't want Tenjin station, I wanted Neshitetsu Tenjin Station, which wasn't on the map exactly. In its place was Fukuoka Station, so I assumed a name change and looked around, only to realize that it was a subway station, not a bus station. Confused beyond my normal levels, I tried to rationalize this, and decided stalking a businessman to his next location would work. And again through my Uncanny Cosmic Coincidence, following him led my upstairs to the secret bus station on the third floor that isn't mentioned on the map for some reason because Fukuoka is run by dumb meanies. So remember, kids. If you're lost, be sure to follow strange men around until they lead you to where you need to be!
Having about an hour to kill before the next bus, I decided I'd spend most of that looking around for the electronics store I had found the night before with a good deal on some portable hard drives that I could use. Honestly, I ran into this place three times the night before and I could not find it when I wanted to go there. Last second I did find it, got my HD, nabbed a sandwich from McDonald's, hopped the bus, and enjoyed the movie.
This was a Hama-chan movie. Which I'm pretty sure is a line of movies similar to Steve Martin or something, in that this guy used to be funny, but he just kept making movies until people stopped caring anymore. This one started off with him getting the entire office building together into a musical number. That right there sets the mood for fantastic. Then he gets home and his son complains to him about how this kid at school has all this cool stuff that he doesn't, so Hama-chan is all "Well come on, you gotta have something that he doesn't," so his son replies with "Hmmm.... yeah! A hot mom!" Which apparently isn't weird at all. In response, Hama-chan hugs his son, tosses him out the door and locks him outside, then breaks into song which proceeds into him making love to his wife for a good 12 seconds while magic papiér-maché fish float around and words pop up on screen making fun of his short endurance.
I'm entirely serious.
Then he gets sick of work, goes on vacation and gets drunk with some token black guy. He gets SO drunk, in fact, that he winds up on a US Navy ship passed out in one of the random rooms. Turns out his token black friend is in the navy, and they all got so drunk he wound up there. The rest of the movie involves him trying to get off the boat and going crazy, using an American flag to catch fish that scream and get him caught, and he goes home, and gets a promotion and everyone loves him so on so forth.
Really Japan.
Anyways, I missed my stop through all that. Actually, I didn't miss it so much as I had a dumb moment or a combination of my dumbness and the bus driver hating me. Whenever we got to a stop, the bus driver would announce the name of the place, then stop the bus, then get off and wait to help people unload. He didn't actually say the name of my bus, he said "Thank you" and then stopped the bus and got out. I honestly thought he was just checking the tire or something. By the time I realized it I was in downtown Beppu and had to waste a ticket just to get back to campus.
Yargh.
Ah well, the whole trip was fun. Aside from the hostel guy and the girl at the Robosquare I managed to go a whole two days living in another city, entirely in Japanese, and not having any problems doing so. I'd say that's a pretty good indication that I'm at least at the level that I need to be, and I'm pretty proud of that I'd say. I'd look forward to doing it again, maybe not at the same place, but definitely again.
Check out the photo album, as I said there are a bunch of photos there now. Not necessarily from Fukuoka, but most of them are.
Updates should be regular again now, and apparently everyone checks this on Saturday (correct me if I'm wrong) so I'll be making those posts count more if I can. Look forward to that.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Tomorrow
There were some mixups (and still might be) but if all goes well I'll be leaving for Fukuoka tomorrow.
So, this is just a placeholder. Don't expect an update til at least Wednesday.
So, this is just a placeholder. Don't expect an update til at least Wednesday.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Late as per the Usual
Shut up I was watching a movie.
Anyways, I managed to get a lot done today without properly doing much aside from walking around and handing paper to people. Walked to the atm, walked to the travel counter to get bus tickets, walked to the main office to okay my loan forms, walked around town, walked to the post office, walked to get lunch, and then came home.
I got my very late birthday present from my friend (see: It's been waiting at the post office for at least a week and a half and I suck at picking things up). I actually was first sent to the wrong post office by my RA, and the woman there seemed panicky. I could understand half of her Japanese which is fine for telling me "we don't have your package, it is at the other post office" but she got nervous halfway through and tried to explain it in English for about three words, then sat there sounding things out and trying again. I eventually just butted in and said "Nihongo wa daijobu" because I felt bad watching her. She also told me to go to the Kitahama Post Office and then said something about the police station. She had been muttering "post station" to herself right before, so I think she got them confused because the buildings are on opposite sides of the town, and it would be silly to expect my package to be in a state of quantum flux between the post office and the police station.
Although I guess I wouldn't rule out Japan on anything.
Also I went to this Wal-Mart type place. Except it had absolutely no food and a crappy electronics section, but that crappy electronics section yielded a surprisingly affordable MP3 player that I need to swing back around to collect. Also I bought a pillow and a light bulb, which are two things I desperately needed probably.
My vacation plans have been moved forward to next month. In the meantime I'm bored, so I've taken it upon myself to make new plans until then. I'm leaving Sunday to go to Fukuoka for two days, most probably by myself unless my two friends change their minds. One friend doesn't want to go because he has no money, which is understandable. And I think the other one is afraid that travelling somewhere and then sharing a hotel room with another man will look gay.
Yes, I'm serious.
Anyways, with this way I don't have to get a hotel room, and I can just go out, stay out all night or go to an internet cafe, and then come home the next day, possibly sleeping on the bus or just CRASH when I get home.
Either way, it is something to do and I'm not sticking around doing nothing anymore.
Row row, fight the powa.
Anyways, I managed to get a lot done today without properly doing much aside from walking around and handing paper to people. Walked to the atm, walked to the travel counter to get bus tickets, walked to the main office to okay my loan forms, walked around town, walked to the post office, walked to get lunch, and then came home.
I got my very late birthday present from my friend (see: It's been waiting at the post office for at least a week and a half and I suck at picking things up). I actually was first sent to the wrong post office by my RA, and the woman there seemed panicky. I could understand half of her Japanese which is fine for telling me "we don't have your package, it is at the other post office" but she got nervous halfway through and tried to explain it in English for about three words, then sat there sounding things out and trying again. I eventually just butted in and said "Nihongo wa daijobu" because I felt bad watching her. She also told me to go to the Kitahama Post Office and then said something about the police station. She had been muttering "post station" to herself right before, so I think she got them confused because the buildings are on opposite sides of the town, and it would be silly to expect my package to be in a state of quantum flux between the post office and the police station.
Although I guess I wouldn't rule out Japan on anything.
Also I went to this Wal-Mart type place. Except it had absolutely no food and a crappy electronics section, but that crappy electronics section yielded a surprisingly affordable MP3 player that I need to swing back around to collect. Also I bought a pillow and a light bulb, which are two things I desperately needed probably.
My vacation plans have been moved forward to next month. In the meantime I'm bored, so I've taken it upon myself to make new plans until then. I'm leaving Sunday to go to Fukuoka for two days, most probably by myself unless my two friends change their minds. One friend doesn't want to go because he has no money, which is understandable. And I think the other one is afraid that travelling somewhere and then sharing a hotel room with another man will look gay.
Yes, I'm serious.
Anyways, with this way I don't have to get a hotel room, and I can just go out, stay out all night or go to an internet cafe, and then come home the next day, possibly sleeping on the bus or just CRASH when I get home.
Either way, it is something to do and I'm not sticking around doing nothing anymore.
Row row, fight the powa.
Friday, February 20, 2009
The child inside is well and alive
I'm pretty much a little kid. If I go for walks or something I'll inevitably look at a weird telephone pole or a tree or something and go "THAT THING LOOKS LIKE ANOTHER THING!"
For example, everytime I walk past this spot in the hallway, I can't help thinking of a tie fighter.
The weather decided to rain on my parade, so no hike with my friend AGAIN today. Stupid rain. Te choca. We did watch some Japanese soap opera after I had failed at making a successful omelette (it really just came out as lumps of eggs with ham on top).
I could really take a full week to just talk about what I see on tv here. It's insane. This was a bowling drama. Yes. BOWLING. The main character is this badass bowling alley manager, and he was talking a girl out of suicide on top of some building. Two of the other guys were in a sauna, and the one guy picked up the rocks from the middle of the room and held them to his chest. Then poorly computerized steam emanated from his chest and his hands started glowing bright red to indicate how hot the rocks were while he was screaming a manly scream. Then the attendant came into the sauna and brought them more towels and removed her top, at which point the pinnacle of manliness in the room looked over and smiled at her, and then his implied sudden erection shot the towel off his waist and into the ceiling. And as if that wasn't bad enough, we then get a 3/4 from behind view of the guy with a giant rainbow censor well past his head, at which the girl stares at in awe.
Seriously Japan. What. the. crap.
For example, everytime I walk past this spot in the hallway, I can't help thinking of a tie fighter.
The weather decided to rain on my parade, so no hike with my friend AGAIN today. Stupid rain. Te choca. We did watch some Japanese soap opera after I had failed at making a successful omelette (it really just came out as lumps of eggs with ham on top).
I could really take a full week to just talk about what I see on tv here. It's insane. This was a bowling drama. Yes. BOWLING. The main character is this badass bowling alley manager, and he was talking a girl out of suicide on top of some building. Two of the other guys were in a sauna, and the one guy picked up the rocks from the middle of the room and held them to his chest. Then poorly computerized steam emanated from his chest and his hands started glowing bright red to indicate how hot the rocks were while he was screaming a manly scream. Then the attendant came into the sauna and brought them more towels and removed her top, at which point the pinnacle of manliness in the room looked over and smiled at her, and then his implied sudden erection shot the towel off his waist and into the ceiling. And as if that wasn't bad enough, we then get a 3/4 from behind view of the guy with a giant rainbow censor well past his head, at which the girl stares at in awe.
Seriously Japan. What. the. crap.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Sleep is for the weak!
Unless you're really tired. Or you stayed up all night. Or you're me.
I managed to sleep in past meeting times with my friend two days in a row. This makes me a huge jerk, and my friend awesome for being cool with it. I should probably treat him to lunch, or possibly a shiny nickel. Shiny nickels are rare in Japan, what with them being American currency and all.
I did go downtown anyway, which resulted in my buying a pretty cool mouse and also winning a giant tub of M&M's from the arcade. I find it odd that I can win M&M's but I cannot buy them anywhere.
Still, tell me this isn't awesome for a dollar:
See also: My new mouse and the old mouse that I don't love anymore.
Tomorrow we're trying this whole hanging out thing again. I seem to be very bad at it, but dammit I'm trying! So much like the cute puppy my friend is giving in, only this time we're just going to wait til I wake up. It seems easier this way.
Also goddammit hardest bag of Doritos to open ever.
I managed to sleep in past meeting times with my friend two days in a row. This makes me a huge jerk, and my friend awesome for being cool with it. I should probably treat him to lunch, or possibly a shiny nickel. Shiny nickels are rare in Japan, what with them being American currency and all.
I did go downtown anyway, which resulted in my buying a pretty cool mouse and also winning a giant tub of M&M's from the arcade. I find it odd that I can win M&M's but I cannot buy them anywhere.
Still, tell me this isn't awesome for a dollar:
Tomorrow we're trying this whole hanging out thing again. I seem to be very bad at it, but dammit I'm trying! So much like the cute puppy my friend is giving in, only this time we're just going to wait til I wake up. It seems easier this way.
Also goddammit hardest bag of Doritos to open ever.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
WHAT? WHO ARE YOU?
IS YOUR NAME PEGGLE? You don't look like peggle. Why am I bothering with you?
My addiction is in full swing. I have two challenges left and they are very, very hard. Well not that hard, but still.
If you haven't watch Batman the Brave and the Bold you should. It's the new cartoon and it plays like an old Batman Saturday morning cartoon. All the characters are over the top and Batman's utility belt and vehicles can do ANYTHING. If he removies his belt and straightens it out he can pull a sword out from it. It doesn't make sense, but it is absolutely awesome.
I remembered seeing a movie theater around town, so I tried to remember where in the heck it was. I decided "Hey, I can use the INTERNET for this sort of thing!". Being American, I searched in English for "Beppu theater" at the very least hoping I'd come across a tourist guide site that showed me where it was.
Instead I found this: The Beppu Adult Entertainment Guide. Well... it's definitely got a theater listed.
After smartening up I searched for 別府映画館 and that proved to be a bit more fruitful, considering I found it in the first result and there are actually two theaters 3 blocks from each other. So tomorrow I'm tailing a friend downtown and hopefully seeing something. If it's in Japanese hopefully I'll have a tale to tell about how awful it is. Otherwise, I'll end up seeing Kung Fu Panda or something.
Again.
My addiction is in full swing. I have two challenges left and they are very, very hard. Well not that hard, but still.
If you haven't watch Batman the Brave and the Bold you should. It's the new cartoon and it plays like an old Batman Saturday morning cartoon. All the characters are over the top and Batman's utility belt and vehicles can do ANYTHING. If he removies his belt and straightens it out he can pull a sword out from it. It doesn't make sense, but it is absolutely awesome.
I remembered seeing a movie theater around town, so I tried to remember where in the heck it was. I decided "Hey, I can use the INTERNET for this sort of thing!". Being American, I searched in English for "Beppu theater" at the very least hoping I'd come across a tourist guide site that showed me where it was.
Instead I found this: The Beppu Adult Entertainment Guide. Well... it's definitely got a theater listed.
After smartening up I searched for 別府映画館 and that proved to be a bit more fruitful, considering I found it in the first result and there are actually two theaters 3 blocks from each other. So tomorrow I'm tailing a friend downtown and hopefully seeing something. If it's in Japanese hopefully I'll have a tale to tell about how awful it is. Otherwise, I'll end up seeing Kung Fu Panda or something.
Again.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
First thing's first
Tommy Lee Jones.
Looks an awful lot like him, don't it?
Anyways. I finally got a hold of my friend. She's still looking for a place for me to stay (I'm a boy so I can't room at the host family house. Not that I'd want to impose, really) so that's at least progressing. Until then, I am bugging people I know to help keep me occupied, and I might get board and go to Fukuoka for a day if I can figure out the train system on my own.
Also, that ramen I talked about the other day. Yeah, here's a picture of it:
I'm sorry, but if you don't think that that looks absolutely delicious, then I don't think that we can be friends anymore. I've had to fight the urge to go there and eat it three times a day. At least my love for the stuff has been rekindled and I can go around earning my title again.
Also my sexy briefcase:
Now THAT is a manly accessory. The only think I've realized is that I have to carry it by the handle, so that should take a bit of getting used to.
And for your viewing pleasure, I've established a simulation. I'm sure the harsh rigors of America or possibly Catamaran (I don't keep track of where the people are from whom read this) leave you longing for the bedazzled celebrity lifestyle that every foreigner gets the second they enter Japan.
So here it is! The long awaited....
Waiting at a Japanese bus stop simulation!
Just like you always wanted.
Ah, now wasn't that exciting?
Looks an awful lot like him, don't it?
Anyways. I finally got a hold of my friend. She's still looking for a place for me to stay (I'm a boy so I can't room at the host family house. Not that I'd want to impose, really) so that's at least progressing. Until then, I am bugging people I know to help keep me occupied, and I might get board and go to Fukuoka for a day if I can figure out the train system on my own.
Also, that ramen I talked about the other day. Yeah, here's a picture of it:
I'm sorry, but if you don't think that that looks absolutely delicious, then I don't think that we can be friends anymore. I've had to fight the urge to go there and eat it three times a day. At least my love for the stuff has been rekindled and I can go around earning my title again.
Also my sexy briefcase:
Now THAT is a manly accessory. The only think I've realized is that I have to carry it by the handle, so that should take a bit of getting used to.
And for your viewing pleasure, I've established a simulation. I'm sure the harsh rigors of America or possibly Catamaran (I don't keep track of where the people are from whom read this) leave you longing for the bedazzled celebrity lifestyle that every foreigner gets the second they enter Japan.
So here it is! The long awaited....
Waiting at a Japanese bus stop simulation!
Just like you always wanted.
Ah, now wasn't that exciting?
Monday, February 16, 2009
Today is Sunday
This is a blog. On a website. On the internet. On your computer.
Let's get my freebie content out of the way:
Weird search: talk to cleverbot boobs
Now... This may not seem weird due to it being on the internet. But I'm personally just confused as to why somebody is searching for boobs and cleverbot at the same time. It's a text based robot script operating on a website. I'm pretty sure there is no porn of it.
So, pretty much everyone is gone now. I stayed up all night and a couple of us saw Jason off this morning, so he's gone. And another friend left later in the day.
And then I went downtown, hurrah! And I forgot to upload the pictures...
So yes, again, tomorrow. I got a briefcase and I am excited about it. I'm not exactly sure why, but I am. I like stupid things. Like all of you reading this blog. Right now. Yes, you. You're stupid but I like you anyways.
See how that works?
Also: success! Peanut Butter! Sort of...
This one isn't pudding at least, and it smells like peanut butter. It's a thicker consistency but still very fluffy. I'm going to experiment (non-sexually) with it to see if I can make it even better. Right now it pretty much tastes like peanuts in water.
I also made up my mind that I'm going hiking. In the mountains around campus. Gonna try to get JM to come with me, and it's free so that's always a motivator.
So if I give no other warning and I don't blog for a few days, then I fell to my death.
Let's get my freebie content out of the way:
Weird search: talk to cleverbot boobs
Now... This may not seem weird due to it being on the internet. But I'm personally just confused as to why somebody is searching for boobs and cleverbot at the same time. It's a text based robot script operating on a website. I'm pretty sure there is no porn of it.
So, pretty much everyone is gone now. I stayed up all night and a couple of us saw Jason off this morning, so he's gone. And another friend left later in the day.
And then I went downtown, hurrah! And I forgot to upload the pictures...
So yes, again, tomorrow. I got a briefcase and I am excited about it. I'm not exactly sure why, but I am. I like stupid things. Like all of you reading this blog. Right now. Yes, you. You're stupid but I like you anyways.
See how that works?
Also: success! Peanut Butter! Sort of...
This one isn't pudding at least, and it smells like peanut butter. It's a thicker consistency but still very fluffy. I'm going to experiment (non-sexually) with it to see if I can make it even better. Right now it pretty much tastes like peanuts in water.
I also made up my mind that I'm going hiking. In the mountains around campus. Gonna try to get JM to come with me, and it's free so that's always a motivator.
So if I give no other warning and I don't blog for a few days, then I fell to my death.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Odd Day
Today was weird.
The mailman didn't come back, so that was disappointing. I hate calling the post office, because I have no idea what to say to them. I'm almost positive that I'm always on the verge of insulting them in a language I don't know.
Odd event number 1: Let's hit those showers
It was a lazy day so I pretty much just lounged around for most of it. And by the time I went to take a shower it was already 2:30 in the afternoon. Somehow every single shower except for one on the far end was taken. This never happens. No matter what time of day I go in there has never been more than one other person in a shower stall, so it was even weirder to be right in the middle of the day.
Odd event number 2: There is this bug in my room
Seriously. Like a little fruit fly or something. And it keeps smacking me. Like, it'll run into my arm and then fly away, and then a few minutes later it comes back and smacks me on the cheek. It doesn't even bite me or anything, it just keeps bumping into me, and it's REALLY annoying.
Odd event number 3: This guy
At one point when I was walking back to my room and I had left it unlocked (because I absolutely love breaching my security deposit, ya know?), I saw some guy who was walking a bit of ways ahead of me open my door, walk into my room, then immediately walk back out of my room, head two doors over, and then go into that room. I'm guessing he just misjudged his distance (I'm sure we're all guilty of that on occasion) but it was still pretty weird.
Odd event number 4: Bad air
For some reason my room was filled with a type of air that made it difficult to breathe. Also I was feeling really warm at 22 degrees celsius so had to keep turning the heat down (I normaly keep it at 22, so this is sort of weird). So I've had the window open most of the day, and it's practically gale force winds out there, so thins keep falling over.
Odd event number 5: Bag of eww
One of my friends was in the kitchen with a bag full of reddish slop. Apparently it's homemade kimchi in what appears to be a clear garbage bag. Because as we all know, kimchi is cabbage that you have to let rot until it's nice and....rotten.
Because cabbage isn't bad enough already, right?
And to top this all off, I don't think that the Japanese understand what peanut butter is. Seriously, I bought some yesterday but I opened it today and it has like.. the consistency of pudding. And it's very dark. I tried salting it, but it's still awful, and I tried stirring it for a good 10 minutes too to no avail. The entire thing tastes like the gross oil that settles on top of organic peanut butter.
So to everyone reading this who would like to send a care package, please include:
Peanut Butter
Beef Jerky
Brownie Mix
M&Ms
Reese's Cups
Loganberry
Very hot chicken wings
Unless you're living outside of New York, in which case forget the chicken wings (because you won't live anywhere that actually makes them -oh snap- ) and just send a cheeseburger instead.
The mailman didn't come back, so that was disappointing. I hate calling the post office, because I have no idea what to say to them. I'm almost positive that I'm always on the verge of insulting them in a language I don't know.
Odd event number 1: Let's hit those showers
It was a lazy day so I pretty much just lounged around for most of it. And by the time I went to take a shower it was already 2:30 in the afternoon. Somehow every single shower except for one on the far end was taken. This never happens. No matter what time of day I go in there has never been more than one other person in a shower stall, so it was even weirder to be right in the middle of the day.
Odd event number 2: There is this bug in my room
Seriously. Like a little fruit fly or something. And it keeps smacking me. Like, it'll run into my arm and then fly away, and then a few minutes later it comes back and smacks me on the cheek. It doesn't even bite me or anything, it just keeps bumping into me, and it's REALLY annoying.
Odd event number 3: This guy
At one point when I was walking back to my room and I had left it unlocked (because I absolutely love breaching my security deposit, ya know?), I saw some guy who was walking a bit of ways ahead of me open my door, walk into my room, then immediately walk back out of my room, head two doors over, and then go into that room. I'm guessing he just misjudged his distance (I'm sure we're all guilty of that on occasion) but it was still pretty weird.
Odd event number 4: Bad air
For some reason my room was filled with a type of air that made it difficult to breathe. Also I was feeling really warm at 22 degrees celsius so had to keep turning the heat down (I normaly keep it at 22, so this is sort of weird). So I've had the window open most of the day, and it's practically gale force winds out there, so thins keep falling over.
Odd event number 5: Bag of eww
One of my friends was in the kitchen with a bag full of reddish slop. Apparently it's homemade kimchi in what appears to be a clear garbage bag. Because as we all know, kimchi is cabbage that you have to let rot until it's nice and....rotten.
Because cabbage isn't bad enough already, right?
And to top this all off, I don't think that the Japanese understand what peanut butter is. Seriously, I bought some yesterday but I opened it today and it has like.. the consistency of pudding. And it's very dark. I tried salting it, but it's still awful, and I tried stirring it for a good 10 minutes too to no avail. The entire thing tastes like the gross oil that settles on top of organic peanut butter.
So to everyone reading this who would like to send a care package, please include:
Peanut Butter
Beef Jerky
Brownie Mix
M&Ms
Reese's Cups
Loganberry
Very hot chicken wings
Unless you're living outside of New York, in which case forget the chicken wings (because you won't live anywhere that actually makes them -oh snap- ) and just send a cheeseburger instead.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Sneakinessitude
Never underestimate it.
Apparently I am quite the evasive individual. I woke up to the sound of my phone thinking it was my alarm clock and ignored it with that thought until it was too late. Then I continued lying there for a couple minutes until I realize that that was a call from the mailman who would be at the front door, but by the time I made it here he had left.
Damn my luck!
And then I forgot that I was going to the arcade today so I went to the cafeteria, and one of my friends had apparently gone to my room trying to find me.
But then he went to the cafeteria as well, so hey, worked out.
Also, not sure if I mentioned this, but people can smoke in the arcades here. About halfway through the gaming I had to go outside in order to breathe properly again. Dagnabbit!
Was fun overall, though, despite my friend being a hadouken spamming prick. Also, the taiko game had the Mario music on it, so that rocked in stereo.
There is a place called Kuta Ramen.
There is a place called Kuta Ramen, and it is magical.
There is a place called Kuta Ramen, and it is magical, and GLORIOUS.
We went there for lunch after the arcade and this place has the genius idea of giving you free refills. On RAMEN. Alright, granted it's not fresh soup, but they bring you freshly cooked noodles for your bowl if you still have broth left. My initial helping was pretty hefty (and apparently I had extra thick noodles... for some reason. Good though) and I managed to get 2 extras down. One of my friends got 5. That's 5 refills of ramen, making that about 6 bowls in total.
That's insane, for anyone not sure.
We worked that off by going to a porn store (the feeble of heart and children may want to stop reading here).
The first thing in this place that was apparent is that it wasn't just a porn store, it was a normal store. There were tech magazines, candy, some actual movies, a few shelves of books and comic books, some arcade machines.... actually, all the porn was in an entirely different half of the store.
Which we went to under the assumption that it would make one of our friends uncomfortable.
One thing that I feel the need to point out is that the Japanese are absolutely revolting in their sexual deviancy. There are gravure idol videos (basically model shoots, wearing clothing and everything!) of little girls. I mean in the 6 years old range. I'm sure the videos themselves aren't sexual depictions in any way, but the fact that they are included in these sections means you know what they are used for. They also sell used panties with pictures of the girls they come from for similar purposes.
On the other end of the spectrum, the Japanese porn is hilarious. There are such ridiculously specific fetishes that exist that you can't help but laugh. The best example of this that we found was girls in leotard with white stockings. Specifically white stockings. In fact, we found "Leotard and White Stockings VI". Yes, 6. There was also a best of collection.
Oh, also Cola flavored body oil. Not even kidding.
Apparently I am quite the evasive individual. I woke up to the sound of my phone thinking it was my alarm clock and ignored it with that thought until it was too late. Then I continued lying there for a couple minutes until I realize that that was a call from the mailman who would be at the front door, but by the time I made it here he had left.
Damn my luck!
And then I forgot that I was going to the arcade today so I went to the cafeteria, and one of my friends had apparently gone to my room trying to find me.
But then he went to the cafeteria as well, so hey, worked out.
Also, not sure if I mentioned this, but people can smoke in the arcades here. About halfway through the gaming I had to go outside in order to breathe properly again. Dagnabbit!
Was fun overall, though, despite my friend being a hadouken spamming prick. Also, the taiko game had the Mario music on it, so that rocked in stereo.
There is a place called Kuta Ramen.
There is a place called Kuta Ramen, and it is magical.
There is a place called Kuta Ramen, and it is magical, and GLORIOUS.
We went there for lunch after the arcade and this place has the genius idea of giving you free refills. On RAMEN. Alright, granted it's not fresh soup, but they bring you freshly cooked noodles for your bowl if you still have broth left. My initial helping was pretty hefty (and apparently I had extra thick noodles... for some reason. Good though) and I managed to get 2 extras down. One of my friends got 5. That's 5 refills of ramen, making that about 6 bowls in total.
That's insane, for anyone not sure.
We worked that off by going to a porn store (the feeble of heart and children may want to stop reading here).
The first thing in this place that was apparent is that it wasn't just a porn store, it was a normal store. There were tech magazines, candy, some actual movies, a few shelves of books and comic books, some arcade machines.... actually, all the porn was in an entirely different half of the store.
Which we went to under the assumption that it would make one of our friends uncomfortable.
One thing that I feel the need to point out is that the Japanese are absolutely revolting in their sexual deviancy. There are gravure idol videos (basically model shoots, wearing clothing and everything!) of little girls. I mean in the 6 years old range. I'm sure the videos themselves aren't sexual depictions in any way, but the fact that they are included in these sections means you know what they are used for. They also sell used panties with pictures of the girls they come from for similar purposes.
On the other end of the spectrum, the Japanese porn is hilarious. There are such ridiculously specific fetishes that exist that you can't help but laugh. The best example of this that we found was girls in leotard with white stockings. Specifically white stockings. In fact, we found "Leotard and White Stockings VI". Yes, 6. There was also a best of collection.
Oh, also Cola flavored body oil. Not even kidding.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Ha-ha! Sick Day!
Well, not sick per se, but I took the day off from....
Vacation?
Alright I just sat around all day playing video games and watching cartoons.
Specifically, Panda-Z (Pronounced Zetto/Zeddo like the dang Brits).
A very... odd little series. Parodying Mazinger-Z which is a show I'm guessing most people reading this also haven't seen. But this has a bunch of robot animals fighting other robot animals, and jokes about how they rust in the rain and such like that. It's ridiculously entertaining, has a fantastic theme song, and each episode is only 5 minutes long (or 3 minutes, rather, considering the opening and ending themes take up 2 minutes). It's on Youtube, so look for it.
Not sure how travel is working out anymore. Haven't been able to get a hold of well...anyone, pretty much. But if things are still going according to plan, then this will be updated sparsely for somewhere between 2 and 4 weeks, so be on the lookout for that.
Tomorrow is goin to the arcade day. I promise it will be filled with constantly telling Jason that he doesn't believe in fun.
So basically, it'll be lots of fun.
Vacation?
Alright I just sat around all day playing video games and watching cartoons.
Specifically, Panda-Z (Pronounced Zetto/Zeddo like the dang Brits).
A very... odd little series. Parodying Mazinger-Z which is a show I'm guessing most people reading this also haven't seen. But this has a bunch of robot animals fighting other robot animals, and jokes about how they rust in the rain and such like that. It's ridiculously entertaining, has a fantastic theme song, and each episode is only 5 minutes long (or 3 minutes, rather, considering the opening and ending themes take up 2 minutes). It's on Youtube, so look for it.
Not sure how travel is working out anymore. Haven't been able to get a hold of well...anyone, pretty much. But if things are still going according to plan, then this will be updated sparsely for somewhere between 2 and 4 weeks, so be on the lookout for that.
Tomorrow is goin to the arcade day. I promise it will be filled with constantly telling Jason that he doesn't believe in fun.
So basically, it'll be lots of fun.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Chala! Head-chala!
So I had to go back and change the title of my Left 4 Dead blog way back in the archives. I was getting quite a bit of hits off of that, and I feel bad that I have no information as to what it entails. So if you're finding this blog by searching for Left4Dead or whatnot, I'm sorry but your princess is in another castle.
Meanwhile, I went to town for the second time this week today. First for the purpose of buying a cell phone.
I don't think I'm buying a cell phone.
Call me old fashioned, but I don't think that a phone should cause 300 dollars, especially not one that I'll be using for 6 months and then tossing into a discard pile (unless I figure out how to unlock it or something). Also they need me to bring my alien registration card, my passport, my bank book, my personal stamp, and for some unknown reason my HEALTH INSURANCE.
Not quite sure I care enough anymore. Starting to wish Japan had tracfones, but I'm guessing that would go against the Japanese tradition of giving everyone you meet your personal history.
After that I took a wrong turn and got lost. Literally lost. This hasn't happened in a while. I just honestly wound up on a highway, which I didn't even know we had in Beppu. So I walked along it for a while and debated jumping off a bridge (there was another, smaller bridge underneath it and I figured I could make it) until I spotted something that looked familiar and made my way over to it.
One of the other of the reasons three that be that me (that's I) wanted to venture out was to pick up a certain game that I saw at Book Off last week. Somebody had since bought it so I bought Sonic and punched the cashier in the face (or silently cursed my luck. Your choice.) I also, out of boredom, wandered upstairs to the used everything department and came across a travel luggage... thing (what the hell do they call those? Like suitcases, but with wheels and the long handle. I bought one of those). This only cost 1000 yen, which is at least 4500 yen less than the one I was going out today in order to buy, so that was very much appreciated. There was also a briefcase that I didn't buy, but should have considering how much money I spent by buying the used travel case. Maybe I'll stop back Thursday. I've always wanted a briefcase.
I went to a curry house and got something called "Gyuumotsu chiizu kare" which was beef...something and cheese curry. I call it beef something because gyuu means beef, and motsu means something that isn't in my dictionary. I feel like it's beef skin, but I'm not sure and I'm afraid to look it up. Whatever it was it was chewy and relatively flavorless, but not entirely disgusting. It tided me over til I got to the arcade and played some Taiko Drum Master on hard mode to anime theme songs and looked like a lonely loser dork.
Hurrah!
The rest of the night is filled with donuts and Little Big Planet (The guy who owns the communal PS3 left and JM claimed it while he's gone. So, free reign. Another hurrah!)
Thursday is more arcade and Kuta Ramen, which is all you can eat ramen shop. Jason is leaving and NEVER COMING BACK (until next year) so we're going out as a celebration. Of not seeing him. Do you celebrate people leaving? Parties are celebrations, right? So a going away party is celebrating somebody not being there. Are funeral receptions parties? Wedding receptions are, so reception is like another word for party. But I don't think anyone is celebrating funerals.
Oh man, I sort of went off on a tangent there, didn't I?
Anyways, 90 pictures (ninety!) in the photobucket dump. I'll only post this one:
I found this little area about a block away from a spot I go to ALL THE TIME. It's really nice, and I tried to cross the stream on some algae covered rocks and nearly died. I also took a little video that isn't online (it's mostly just a panned back and forth shot anyways) but there are a whole bunch of pictures of it in the photobucket, so check that out.
Bye!
Meanwhile, I went to town for the second time this week today. First for the purpose of buying a cell phone.
I don't think I'm buying a cell phone.
Call me old fashioned, but I don't think that a phone should cause 300 dollars, especially not one that I'll be using for 6 months and then tossing into a discard pile (unless I figure out how to unlock it or something). Also they need me to bring my alien registration card, my passport, my bank book, my personal stamp, and for some unknown reason my HEALTH INSURANCE.
Not quite sure I care enough anymore. Starting to wish Japan had tracfones, but I'm guessing that would go against the Japanese tradition of giving everyone you meet your personal history.
After that I took a wrong turn and got lost. Literally lost. This hasn't happened in a while. I just honestly wound up on a highway, which I didn't even know we had in Beppu. So I walked along it for a while and debated jumping off a bridge (there was another, smaller bridge underneath it and I figured I could make it) until I spotted something that looked familiar and made my way over to it.
One of the other of the reasons three that be that me (that's I) wanted to venture out was to pick up a certain game that I saw at Book Off last week. Somebody had since bought it so I bought Sonic and punched the cashier in the face (or silently cursed my luck. Your choice.) I also, out of boredom, wandered upstairs to the used everything department and came across a travel luggage... thing (what the hell do they call those? Like suitcases, but with wheels and the long handle. I bought one of those). This only cost 1000 yen, which is at least 4500 yen less than the one I was going out today in order to buy, so that was very much appreciated. There was also a briefcase that I didn't buy, but should have considering how much money I spent by buying the used travel case. Maybe I'll stop back Thursday. I've always wanted a briefcase.
I went to a curry house and got something called "Gyuumotsu chiizu kare" which was beef...something and cheese curry. I call it beef something because gyuu means beef, and motsu means something that isn't in my dictionary. I feel like it's beef skin, but I'm not sure and I'm afraid to look it up. Whatever it was it was chewy and relatively flavorless, but not entirely disgusting. It tided me over til I got to the arcade and played some Taiko Drum Master on hard mode to anime theme songs and looked like a lonely loser dork.
Hurrah!
The rest of the night is filled with donuts and Little Big Planet (The guy who owns the communal PS3 left and JM claimed it while he's gone. So, free reign. Another hurrah!)
Thursday is more arcade and Kuta Ramen, which is all you can eat ramen shop. Jason is leaving and NEVER COMING BACK (until next year) so we're going out as a celebration. Of not seeing him. Do you celebrate people leaving? Parties are celebrations, right? So a going away party is celebrating somebody not being there. Are funeral receptions parties? Wedding receptions are, so reception is like another word for party. But I don't think anyone is celebrating funerals.
Oh man, I sort of went off on a tangent there, didn't I?
Anyways, 90 pictures (ninety!) in the photobucket dump. I'll only post this one:
I found this little area about a block away from a spot I go to ALL THE TIME. It's really nice, and I tried to cross the stream on some algae covered rocks and nearly died. I also took a little video that isn't online (it's mostly just a panned back and forth shot anyways) but there are a whole bunch of pictures of it in the photobucket, so check that out.
Bye!
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Adventures in Japanland
Woke up past the time that the cafeteria is open until (which would be after 2pm) as is the custom of my people (possibly bears.) As a result I had no food, so I decided that I should go down to Beppu and get some. But first, to the Co-op to pick up some bus tickets!
It turned out I already HAD bus tickets, but I needed to break a hundred anyways (well, a 10,000, but it's the same thing). And then some kid at the bus stop needed bus tickets, so I sold him mine and got my money back. So hey, win win.
I went to KFC for lunch and on a whim got this thing called a "Teriyaki Twister" or something along those lines. And dear god, best decision I've ever made. It was in all likelihood the most delicious thing I've eaten since coming here, and considering it was at a KFC I'm not sure that's something to be excited about. But considering how much I complain about the food in this blog I guess it really isn't a surprise. Also, when I was waiting in line there were three little girls ahead of me, with no parents or anything. The smallest one was turned around staring up at me the whole time her sisters(?) were ordering the food, so I smiled and bowed to her and then she smiled and turned around. Solved that problem (you little brat).
I picked up something for a friend and then failed to catch the bus so I had to walk across town again. Nothing really exciting on the walk aside from some cats and an old woman that seemed terrified that I was about twice her size, so she kept scooting sideways from me every couple of seconds while we were waiting for the signal to change.
Ah, also, there was an old guy on a bicycle stopped watching the herons fly in the bay. It was actually sort of calming and nice, in the scene itself and seeing somebody actually taking time from their day for once to just appreciate the things around them, so that put me into some pretty good spirits.
I am also very disappointed that I'm not built like a small girl, and by that I mean Japanese. When I got to the mall I checked out the bargain bin for some cheap Engrish t-shirts and found some good ones, but I don't fit into a Japanese medium that I'm aware of (which is slightly smaller than an American small...possibly). Ah well, maybe I'll get one anyways and use science! to stretch it out or something.
Or my fat ass.
Also, for some reason I thought that buying 20 cans of pop and two small milk jugs in addition to actual groceries was a good idea and wouldn't weigh me down and cause horrible back pains and hinder my walking a few blocks to the bus station.
It totally did that, by the way.
Oh before I forget: Found a crane game that has M&Ms in it. Which is weird, because I haven't actually seen those in any stores. The machine had snickers in it too. I'm under the impression that this is a tourist trap, and that if I catch them then I'll get gassed and murdered.
Or maybe I'm just trying to justify spending 400 yen on it and not being able to win anything, dagnabbit.
It turned out I already HAD bus tickets, but I needed to break a hundred anyways (well, a 10,000, but it's the same thing). And then some kid at the bus stop needed bus tickets, so I sold him mine and got my money back. So hey, win win.
I went to KFC for lunch and on a whim got this thing called a "Teriyaki Twister" or something along those lines. And dear god, best decision I've ever made. It was in all likelihood the most delicious thing I've eaten since coming here, and considering it was at a KFC I'm not sure that's something to be excited about. But considering how much I complain about the food in this blog I guess it really isn't a surprise. Also, when I was waiting in line there were three little girls ahead of me, with no parents or anything. The smallest one was turned around staring up at me the whole time her sisters(?) were ordering the food, so I smiled and bowed to her and then she smiled and turned around. Solved that problem (you little brat).
I picked up something for a friend and then failed to catch the bus so I had to walk across town again. Nothing really exciting on the walk aside from some cats and an old woman that seemed terrified that I was about twice her size, so she kept scooting sideways from me every couple of seconds while we were waiting for the signal to change.
Ah, also, there was an old guy on a bicycle stopped watching the herons fly in the bay. It was actually sort of calming and nice, in the scene itself and seeing somebody actually taking time from their day for once to just appreciate the things around them, so that put me into some pretty good spirits.
I am also very disappointed that I'm not built like a small girl, and by that I mean Japanese. When I got to the mall I checked out the bargain bin for some cheap Engrish t-shirts and found some good ones, but I don't fit into a Japanese medium that I'm aware of (which is slightly smaller than an American small...possibly). Ah well, maybe I'll get one anyways and use science! to stretch it out or something.
Or my fat ass.
Also, for some reason I thought that buying 20 cans of pop and two small milk jugs in addition to actual groceries was a good idea and wouldn't weigh me down and cause horrible back pains and hinder my walking a few blocks to the bus station.
It totally did that, by the way.
Oh before I forget: Found a crane game that has M&Ms in it. Which is weird, because I haven't actually seen those in any stores. The machine had snickers in it too. I'm under the impression that this is a tourist trap, and that if I catch them then I'll get gassed and murdered.
Or maybe I'm just trying to justify spending 400 yen on it and not being able to win anything, dagnabbit.
Monday, February 9, 2009
O.O
I've gotten a severely reduced hit counter the past week and a half. Either everybody is busy, or I'm not delivering anymore.
Well, crap.
Let's post something about Japan, then.
1: In Japan it is a requirement in school to take English from seventh grade onward, and some schools start earlier. So it's important to remember that if you come to Japan and run into an adult, they will know enough English to speak to you. If they act like they don't, that just means that they don't want to use it out of embarrassment, and you should counteract this by speaking louder and slower at them, and repeat yourself as many times until they do something about your problem.
2: The Japanese are a very reserved people, but they absolutely love television. So you should try and be as loud and obnoxious toward them as possible, in an attempt to replicate their favorite "American style" television characters. They. Will. LOVE IT.
3. The Japanese mythical creatures are all real, and this is something you should take into account. Examine everyone you meet for signs of secretly being another creature. Things to look for include: demon horns, catlike or foxlike features (esp. fur, ears, tail), a red tattoo around the neck, or an aversion to the rain. If they exhibit any of these signs then go to the nearest local shrine and get assistance with dealing with the monsters.
4. The Japanese economy is based entirely off of vending machines. There are at least 3 machines on each city block, and normally more. They also frequently come in pairs, oftentimes not actually carrying anything different from the machine that resides next to it. It is proper etiquette to purchase something from each machine you pass, and not doing so will be deemed rude by the local citizens. For this purpose, the drinks come in tiny "shot" sized cans so that you can drink multiple beverages in a short time span without becoming ill or filling your stomach quickly.
5. Foreigners are extremely welcome in Japan, and they will treat you with grand hospitality, and will not accept no for an answer. You are expected to take advantage of this, and not doing so will offend the people who are waiting on you. Pain is honor, so be sure to creatue absurd requests upon your hosts so that they will go to painstakingly difficult lengths to fulfill them for you, and thus be endeared to your wonderful alien culture.
That's your quick lesson on Japan for today. Keep these in mind for the next time you run into a Japanese person (or go to Chinatown, am I right?)
Ha-ha....
Sunday, February 8, 2009
No news is good news
For sickness and taxes. When you're running a blog, however, you should kind of have content.
And I really don't. I'm on vacation, after all. Unless you want in depth descriptions of what books I'm reading and what movies I'm watching then there's not much exciting going on.
I did make pancakes today. I've never done that before somehow, and they turned out pretty good. I guess they're pretty difficult to screw up, but I usually find a way.
I did make way too many though. Something like....8. I really only wanted about 4. But the Japanese pancake mix comes in pre-sized amounts for your easy use and I do appreciate that. I guess I'll just try to be hungrier next time.
Friends are willing to wander over to the next town with me. That should be fun.
So in a day or two, exciting new pictures! Look forward to that.
Until then, there's this.
And I really don't. I'm on vacation, after all. Unless you want in depth descriptions of what books I'm reading and what movies I'm watching then there's not much exciting going on.
I did make pancakes today. I've never done that before somehow, and they turned out pretty good. I guess they're pretty difficult to screw up, but I usually find a way.
I did make way too many though. Something like....8. I really only wanted about 4. But the Japanese pancake mix comes in pre-sized amounts for your easy use and I do appreciate that. I guess I'll just try to be hungrier next time.
Friends are willing to wander over to the next town with me. That should be fun.
So in a day or two, exciting new pictures! Look forward to that.
Until then, there's this.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Not a Monkey!
Haha, I love Dave the Barbarian.
So hey, did you know that there are people out there who still don't believe in evolution?
I'm not saying that everyone should subscribe to the same theories that I do. But I will say that I'm not an idiot, and that should be taken into account.
Why the attack onmorons creationists?
I'm pretty much bored is all.
Sure, the other day I went to town, but other than that, I've just been hanging out on campus all day. Half the campus is gone, I'm getting served by the English speaking students in the cafeteria, all the people left to hang out with are the exchange students who didn't go back to their home countries so it's not like I'm speaking in Japanese....
And I'm stuck on top of a mountain.
Holy crap I've died and gone to West Virginia. (That's like Hell, but as boring as it is terrible).
I think I might just ask JM which direction he headed in to get to the next town when he was jogging and then literally just get lost in Japan. Should be fun.
So if I don't blog tomorrow, then I've either died or booked in a hotel for the night.
Of course, you should always automatically defer to the most horrible outcome possible.
So in all likelihood I was raped and then cannibalized.
Yum.
I always feel weird not knowing how to end these blogs.
So hey, did you know that there are people out there who still don't believe in evolution?
I'm not saying that everyone should subscribe to the same theories that I do. But I will say that I'm not an idiot, and that should be taken into account.
Why the attack on
I'm pretty much bored is all.
Sure, the other day I went to town, but other than that, I've just been hanging out on campus all day. Half the campus is gone, I'm getting served by the English speaking students in the cafeteria, all the people left to hang out with are the exchange students who didn't go back to their home countries so it's not like I'm speaking in Japanese....
And I'm stuck on top of a mountain.
Holy crap I've died and gone to West Virginia. (That's like Hell, but as boring as it is terrible).
I think I might just ask JM which direction he headed in to get to the next town when he was jogging and then literally just get lost in Japan. Should be fun.
So if I don't blog tomorrow, then I've either died or booked in a hotel for the night.
Of course, you should always automatically defer to the most horrible outcome possible.
So in all likelihood I was raped and then cannibalized.
Yum.
I always feel weird not knowing how to end these blogs.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Lupin the Thiiiiiird
Man I love Lupin.
Just got done watching a movie, and another one is coming on so I'm watching that too.
Today was lazy Roshi day. Sat around playing video games on my laptop for a good 5 hours or so. Hurrah Chrono Trigger! I am the last person to ever play it. I should be ashamed of this, but it's a lot of fun so I'm over it.
Also, my camera is still dead because I didn't bother charging it. Which sucks, because that's always when the shots come around that I'd really like to nab. Such as a tree full of tiny birds, or that family of cats that I ran into again on the way to getting some potato croquettes.
I actually picked up some EXTRA snacks for the sole purpose of feeding the kitties on the way back, but some guy had parked his car and climbed into the ditch to play with them.
That was sort of odd.
Oh, also, some of my friends left today. Kind of depressing. A good amount of people I know are only half semester studies, so that means that the ones I saw off today have a good chance of me never seeing them again.
You know, especially with how cheap I am.
Ah well. There'll be new people moving in next semester to fill the gap I suppose.
Actually, new guy here already. Two doors down from me and has an anime drawing on his door. He seems friendly but I haven't properly introduced myself to him. He's also Japanese, so I should probably try to speak proper Japanese with him.
Might be a nice change of pace.
Just got done watching a movie, and another one is coming on so I'm watching that too.
Today was lazy Roshi day. Sat around playing video games on my laptop for a good 5 hours or so. Hurrah Chrono Trigger! I am the last person to ever play it. I should be ashamed of this, but it's a lot of fun so I'm over it.
Also, my camera is still dead because I didn't bother charging it. Which sucks, because that's always when the shots come around that I'd really like to nab. Such as a tree full of tiny birds, or that family of cats that I ran into again on the way to getting some potato croquettes.
I actually picked up some EXTRA snacks for the sole purpose of feeding the kitties on the way back, but some guy had parked his car and climbed into the ditch to play with them.
That was sort of odd.
Oh, also, some of my friends left today. Kind of depressing. A good amount of people I know are only half semester studies, so that means that the ones I saw off today have a good chance of me never seeing them again.
You know, especially with how cheap I am.
Ah well. There'll be new people moving in next semester to fill the gap I suppose.
Actually, new guy here already. Two doors down from me and has an anime drawing on his door. He seems friendly but I haven't properly introduced myself to him. He's also Japanese, so I should probably try to speak proper Japanese with him.
Might be a nice change of pace.
Schedule Shift
So somehow I shifted my sleep schedule from relatively normal, to 7pm until (Sometime between midnight an 2am). Not exactly sure how this happened. Probably should try to fix it.
Went down to Beppu today with Jason for picture taking shenanigans. Also, embarrassing Jason by dancing around and singing in public shenanigans.
We wandered around a good portion of Beppu taking pictures, and wound up in a dog park and such, so that was neat. I almost died multiple times. First by seeing if I could hop onto a pole that I didn't realize was flimsy as hell. I hopped onto it and it bent and I fell off. I thought it was hilarious. The other times were more just me being on precariously small ledges and Jason going "Get off there. You're going to die and if you fall off I'm not going to jump down and save you." Then we saw some kids sitting on the side of the ledge eating food, which is basically an argument in my favor saying how not dangerous it is.
Either that, or Japanese kids are stupid.
Actually, I saw a Japanese kid punch another kid in the face. They were like...5. He just punched the kid once and it was over and then they walked into a store. It was really odd.
I picked up a copy of Blackjack be Osamu Tezuka, the same guy responsible for bringing Astroboy and Gigantor into the world. So, should be good.
Also, stopped at McDonald's and decided that I'm sick and tired of getting crap on my burgers that I don't actually want to eat. So I walked up to the register and said "Doburu chiizubagaa setto, emu saizu, chiizu dake kudasai." (Double cheesburger meal, only cheese please). So the cashier got a really confused look on her face, was silent for a moment, and then asked "Chiizu to mito?" (Cheese and meat).
Yes. Yes cheese and meat. I'm not paying for a double cheeseburger if it's just two pieces of cheese on a bun.
Not sure if it's worth the trouble to go through that again. I don't think people actually custom order in Japan frequently, I'm guessing it's you just take what you can get.
For more proof that Japanese television is really strange: When we got back we sat down and watched the end of Pokemon. Then immediately afterward, there was a show with 4 grown men dressed up in brightly coloured bug suits. They went around smacking each other for a few minutes, and then they were presented with a sort of round crossbeam. They had to spin around the entirety of the pole or be faced with the consequences. Consequences being, one of two girls would eat natto (Disgusting fermented soybeans) and then breathe it on their faces.
Seriously.
I hope I never truly understand this country...
Also, pictures not up yet because battery died. So, tomorrow.
Went down to Beppu today with Jason for picture taking shenanigans. Also, embarrassing Jason by dancing around and singing in public shenanigans.
We wandered around a good portion of Beppu taking pictures, and wound up in a dog park and such, so that was neat. I almost died multiple times. First by seeing if I could hop onto a pole that I didn't realize was flimsy as hell. I hopped onto it and it bent and I fell off. I thought it was hilarious. The other times were more just me being on precariously small ledges and Jason going "Get off there. You're going to die and if you fall off I'm not going to jump down and save you." Then we saw some kids sitting on the side of the ledge eating food, which is basically an argument in my favor saying how not dangerous it is.
Either that, or Japanese kids are stupid.
Actually, I saw a Japanese kid punch another kid in the face. They were like...5. He just punched the kid once and it was over and then they walked into a store. It was really odd.
I picked up a copy of Blackjack be Osamu Tezuka, the same guy responsible for bringing Astroboy and Gigantor into the world. So, should be good.
Also, stopped at McDonald's and decided that I'm sick and tired of getting crap on my burgers that I don't actually want to eat. So I walked up to the register and said "Doburu chiizubagaa setto, emu saizu, chiizu dake kudasai." (Double cheesburger meal, only cheese please). So the cashier got a really confused look on her face, was silent for a moment, and then asked "Chiizu to mito?" (Cheese and meat).
Yes. Yes cheese and meat. I'm not paying for a double cheeseburger if it's just two pieces of cheese on a bun.
Not sure if it's worth the trouble to go through that again. I don't think people actually custom order in Japan frequently, I'm guessing it's you just take what you can get.
For more proof that Japanese television is really strange: When we got back we sat down and watched the end of Pokemon. Then immediately afterward, there was a show with 4 grown men dressed up in brightly coloured bug suits. They went around smacking each other for a few minutes, and then they were presented with a sort of round crossbeam. They had to spin around the entirety of the pole or be faced with the consequences. Consequences being, one of two girls would eat natto (Disgusting fermented soybeans) and then breathe it on their faces.
Seriously.
I hope I never truly understand this country...
Also, pictures not up yet because battery died. So, tomorrow.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
This post brought to you by
Barely Awakened Stupors! Jumbling your words since 1988!
So yes, everything is over. FINALLY. I'm on vacation, I have no more work to do, and it's staying this way for the next two months. So happy.
I promptly celebrated by coming back to my room after the exam and passing out.
Considering this is one of the last times I'll have had a time of day I need to wake up by, I highly doubt that I will be sleeping in the middle of the day anymore. Aside from when I stay up til 10am and then sleep until 2. But that will be on my own terms, not "Oh god I'm so tired I'm going to lean back for a second and holy crap it's 4 hours later."
No more of that.
Since I sort of passed out which makes me lack in anything relatively interesting to talk about from the day, let's put some more pictures up:
These are shoes.
I'm not doubting your deductive skills, I just needed to reiterate that. Because they were shoes. And this was at a bus stop. And Jason and I were the only people around for blocks. And there were shoes. Just.... there.
I'm under the impression that Japanese people spontaneously evaporate, but leave their shoes behind. It's the only explanation.
This is just more Engrish, because I will never stop being amused by it.
Ever.
This is the pony from the electronics store.
Yep.
I should've actually mentioned this the other day, but for some reason it slipped my mind.
The fact that there was a pony at the electronics store slipped my mind. This is what happens when you've been in Japan for too long.
This is a building. It is sad. Poor building.
This is my window. I put a bunch of window clings on it despite the fact that the curtains are always closed. This is because, as you can see, the room opens up to a wall of other rooms. Which still isn't as bad as my friend's whose room window opens to the front entrance, where Security can see him as well as everyone who is coming from classes.
To make up for the closed curtains I have the clings in various other spots in my room. Like this duck on the shelf, or the one on my mirror.
Quick Japanese lesson: Duck in Japanese is 家鴨（あひる）- ahiru. They make the distinction between this and komo, in that ahiru is domestic and komo is wild. I've never heard anyone actually say anything other than ahiru, though, and I didn't hear komo until Jason's pocket translator tried to talk us into using it.
In other news, Bryan tried to argue that the cloud isn't a dinosaur, but in fact the Loch Ness Monster. And as we all know, Nessie is a plesiosaur, which is essentially an aquatic dinosaur. So I think we can all just put it on record that Bryan is a dummyhead.
Two last things: One is Pictures for Sad Children which is an odd sort of comic, but I and a couple of friends have been enjoying it for a bit now and I thought I'd share it. The creator of that also does Hourly Comics which is exactly what it sounds like. He held Hourly Comic Day recently, but I wasn't privy to it at the time and missed out. These are an odd sort of amusing, and since much like everyon else half the things I do are media influenced (just apparently a very strange combination of media) I've begun thinking about things that happen in a "If I were doing an hourly comic, what are the important/funny things that happened this past hour that would go in it?" It's sort of a weird thing to think of, but at the same time it helps you remember things to.
I'm-a go poke my squishy ducks now.
So yes, everything is over. FINALLY. I'm on vacation, I have no more work to do, and it's staying this way for the next two months. So happy.
I promptly celebrated by coming back to my room after the exam and passing out.
Considering this is one of the last times I'll have had a time of day I need to wake up by, I highly doubt that I will be sleeping in the middle of the day anymore. Aside from when I stay up til 10am and then sleep until 2. But that will be on my own terms, not "Oh god I'm so tired I'm going to lean back for a second and holy crap it's 4 hours later."
No more of that.
Since I sort of passed out which makes me lack in anything relatively interesting to talk about from the day, let's put some more pictures up:
These are shoes.
I'm not doubting your deductive skills, I just needed to reiterate that. Because they were shoes. And this was at a bus stop. And Jason and I were the only people around for blocks. And there were shoes. Just.... there.
I'm under the impression that Japanese people spontaneously evaporate, but leave their shoes behind. It's the only explanation.
This is just more Engrish, because I will never stop being amused by it.
Ever.
This is the pony from the electronics store.
Yep.
I should've actually mentioned this the other day, but for some reason it slipped my mind.
The fact that there was a pony at the electronics store slipped my mind. This is what happens when you've been in Japan for too long.
This is a building. It is sad. Poor building.
This is my window. I put a bunch of window clings on it despite the fact that the curtains are always closed. This is because, as you can see, the room opens up to a wall of other rooms. Which still isn't as bad as my friend's whose room window opens to the front entrance, where Security can see him as well as everyone who is coming from classes.
To make up for the closed curtains I have the clings in various other spots in my room. Like this duck on the shelf, or the one on my mirror.
Quick Japanese lesson: Duck in Japanese is 家鴨（あひる）- ahiru. They make the distinction between this and komo, in that ahiru is domestic and komo is wild. I've never heard anyone actually say anything other than ahiru, though, and I didn't hear komo until Jason's pocket translator tried to talk us into using it.
In other news, Bryan tried to argue that the cloud isn't a dinosaur, but in fact the Loch Ness Monster. And as we all know, Nessie is a plesiosaur, which is essentially an aquatic dinosaur. So I think we can all just put it on record that Bryan is a dummyhead.
Two last things: One is Pictures for Sad Children which is an odd sort of comic, but I and a couple of friends have been enjoying it for a bit now and I thought I'd share it. The creator of that also does Hourly Comics which is exactly what it sounds like. He held Hourly Comic Day recently, but I wasn't privy to it at the time and missed out. These are an odd sort of amusing, and since much like everyon else half the things I do are media influenced (just apparently a very strange combination of media) I've begun thinking about things that happen in a "If I were doing an hourly comic, what are the important/funny things that happened this past hour that would go in it?" It's sort of a weird thing to think of, but at the same time it helps you remember things to.
I'm-a go poke my squishy ducks now.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
I'm awake!
But just barely.
Today was a good day. After discussing very nerdy things with some friends, me and one friend talked another friend into believing that he hates fun. He really does though, so it wasn't hard to convince him. He got upset and went into his room and yelled "I hate you guys" through the door. It was very funny, you should have been there.
Immediately afterwards I was in an internet forum discussing penis size. I don't normally post about what I do online here, but this was amusing because Jason came by and told me I should go to the cafeteria with him, to which I responded that he interrupted me discussing penis size with people on the internet. He got real quiet.
I actually was able to hold a conversation about philosophical, psychological and scientific theorems with people at dinner and have more than one person know what I was talking about. It's amazing, this must be what it feels like to be a teacher!
Haha, no, no I'm kidding. I know that teaching is a horribly thankless job where you get maybe one person in the class who cares about the subject matter per year. Haha...
Afterwards Jason and I went to Beppu so that he could fail at things he needed to do. Things like using an ATM and mailing things. He needed assistance for the first one, and he didn't do the second one, but we ran into a girl he knew and from there went shopping the 100 yen store.
I bought some ducks.
Well, not real ducks. They're window clings. They increase the happiness in my room by 20 percent (I did the math.)
Now that there were three of us, it was time again for making fun of Jason. Because it is easy to do, and he's not very good at fighting back.
That is the way of the jungle.
When I came back I decided that it was more worth my time to go to sleep for a few hours instead of doing anything productive. So I went to sleep for two hours, and then woke up and went back to sleep. Then did that once an hour for the next three hours. So less of a nap, and more of just me getting my full five hours of sleep for the night, just earlier.
What's that? You need more than five hours of sleep?
You poor thing you. That must be boring.
JLPT in I think 8 hours from now. So a bit more studying, then shower and breakfast, and I'm off. Wish me luck. At 6pm tonight when I take my last exam I will be a free man for two months!
Huzzah!
Today was a good day. After discussing very nerdy things with some friends, me and one friend talked another friend into believing that he hates fun. He really does though, so it wasn't hard to convince him. He got upset and went into his room and yelled "I hate you guys" through the door. It was very funny, you should have been there.
Immediately afterwards I was in an internet forum discussing penis size. I don't normally post about what I do online here, but this was amusing because Jason came by and told me I should go to the cafeteria with him, to which I responded that he interrupted me discussing penis size with people on the internet. He got real quiet.
I actually was able to hold a conversation about philosophical, psychological and scientific theorems with people at dinner and have more than one person know what I was talking about. It's amazing, this must be what it feels like to be a teacher!
Haha, no, no I'm kidding. I know that teaching is a horribly thankless job where you get maybe one person in the class who cares about the subject matter per year. Haha...
Afterwards Jason and I went to Beppu so that he could fail at things he needed to do. Things like using an ATM and mailing things. He needed assistance for the first one, and he didn't do the second one, but we ran into a girl he knew and from there went shopping the 100 yen store.
I bought some ducks.
Well, not real ducks. They're window clings. They increase the happiness in my room by 20 percent (I did the math.)
Now that there were three of us, it was time again for making fun of Jason. Because it is easy to do, and he's not very good at fighting back.
That is the way of the jungle.
When I came back I decided that it was more worth my time to go to sleep for a few hours instead of doing anything productive. So I went to sleep for two hours, and then woke up and went back to sleep. Then did that once an hour for the next three hours. So less of a nap, and more of just me getting my full five hours of sleep for the night, just earlier.
What's that? You need more than five hours of sleep?
You poor thing you. That must be boring.
JLPT in I think 8 hours from now. So a bit more studying, then shower and breakfast, and I'm off. Wish me luck. At 6pm tonight when I take my last exam I will be a free man for two months!
Huzzah!
Monday, February 2, 2009
T Minus 32 hours
And then my big ol' exam. And THEN I'll be on break. And it will be so nice.
Lot's of studying to do still. So that's no fun.
Sunday Sunday Sunday!
The worst possible result from the searches! There is a fiend out there searching for TOPLESS PICTURES OF VANESSA CARLTON. I know, terrible. Be still, mine fragile heart. I think I might need to take it upon myself to warn a celebrity that somebody wants to see them naked. I know, the absurdity of it all.
Aside from that I got a result for a "I just lost the game" sweater. Not sure why.
I did, however, just lose the game.
I also have some pictures for once. Pictuuuuuures!
First off is just me being stupid with a bagel. Not sure why. Fun, though.
Big prize I won for 100 yen in that crane game. Over half of these are still left. Not all of the flavors are worth putting in your mouth. The chicken curry, however, tastes just like chicken curry... only crunchier.
The magically delicious Luigi toy.
That is a tiny can of Sprite that I bought. It is very small, and most beverages come in that size. I haven't found any bulk packs or anything, so you sort of have to buy them by the handful. There's a quarter there for size comparison.
I'll give you a minute for it to dawn on you that I have American currency for the sole purpose of size comparisons.
And now have some children's comics based around famous western historical figures. Look at how pretty Helen Keller is!
This is a legitimate aisle in the school store. It didn't dawn on me as being hilarious until it was pointed out to me. That's right, I'm growing desensitized to Japanese insanity.
And that horrifies me.
I still find random keys hanging on fences in parks unnerving, though, and made sure to quickly photograph it and get out of there before the Yakuza saw me being curious.
Also I am still obsessed with ravens. For some, inexplicable reason. I'm bothered by how much I've noticed their intelligence ever since I read that article. I have to use the digital zoom to get pictures of them normally, and from great distances, because they notice me pointing a device at them and have apparently come to realize that metal coloured things pointed at animals is a bad thing for their health, and when they notice me they fly away.
Inner Child test:
If you saw that picture and thought "My, that cloud looks like a dinosaur!" pat yourself on the back, because your inner child is still alive.
If you noticed it AFTER I pointed it out, then you still have an inner child, you just push it to the side in order to concentrate on your work, and you should maybe spend a weekend having fun with friends or just watch cartoons while eating ice cream once in a while.
If you still can't see the dinosaur, then I'm sorry, but your inner child is dead. Somebody should have contacted you about it, this is very unfortunate. There is a chance that you might be able to revive it through a combination of 200cc's of laughs and removing the stick from your ass.
Also, I didn't ACTUALLY go to town today. I might tomorrow. I can't study for more than 20 minutes at a time without going nuts anyways.
Lot's of studying to do still. So that's no fun.
Sunday Sunday Sunday!
The worst possible result from the searches! There is a fiend out there searching for TOPLESS PICTURES OF VANESSA CARLTON. I know, terrible. Be still, mine fragile heart. I think I might need to take it upon myself to warn a celebrity that somebody wants to see them naked. I know, the absurdity of it all.
Aside from that I got a result for a "I just lost the game" sweater. Not sure why.
I did, however, just lose the game.
I also have some pictures for once. Pictuuuuuures!
First off is just me being stupid with a bagel. Not sure why. Fun, though.
Big prize I won for 100 yen in that crane game. Over half of these are still left. Not all of the flavors are worth putting in your mouth. The chicken curry, however, tastes just like chicken curry... only crunchier.
The magically delicious Luigi toy.
That is a tiny can of Sprite that I bought. It is very small, and most beverages come in that size. I haven't found any bulk packs or anything, so you sort of have to buy them by the handful. There's a quarter there for size comparison.
I'll give you a minute for it to dawn on you that I have American currency for the sole purpose of size comparisons.
And now have some children's comics based around famous western historical figures. Look at how pretty Helen Keller is!
This is a legitimate aisle in the school store. It didn't dawn on me as being hilarious until it was pointed out to me. That's right, I'm growing desensitized to Japanese insanity.
And that horrifies me.
I still find random keys hanging on fences in parks unnerving, though, and made sure to quickly photograph it and get out of there before the Yakuza saw me being curious.
Also I am still obsessed with ravens. For some, inexplicable reason. I'm bothered by how much I've noticed their intelligence ever since I read that article. I have to use the digital zoom to get pictures of them normally, and from great distances, because they notice me pointing a device at them and have apparently come to realize that metal coloured things pointed at animals is a bad thing for their health, and when they notice me they fly away.
Inner Child test:
If you saw that picture and thought "My, that cloud looks like a dinosaur!" pat yourself on the back, because your inner child is still alive.
If you noticed it AFTER I pointed it out, then you still have an inner child, you just push it to the side in order to concentrate on your work, and you should maybe spend a weekend having fun with friends or just watch cartoons while eating ice cream once in a while.
If you still can't see the dinosaur, then I'm sorry, but your inner child is dead. Somebody should have contacted you about it, this is very unfortunate. There is a chance that you might be able to revive it through a combination of 200cc's of laughs and removing the stick from your ass.
Also, I didn't ACTUALLY go to town today. I might tomorrow. I can't study for more than 20 minutes at a time without going nuts anyways.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Oops
I opened the blog in a window and then got distracted.
Haha...wow.
Today was full of deja vu.
Or rather, I just am afraid of doing new things or something. Did some stuff online, then watched Iron Man with a friend. Then played Left 4 Dead, then watched Shaun of the Dead.
I have seen both of those movies so many times that I can probably quote the dialogue word for word.
One of the guys on the floor has a Dissidia edition PSP. I'm jealous and le sad. I want one. I want TWO.
Going to town tomorrow for groceries and to get the hell away from campus for once this week. Hopefully have some content then.
Real updates start up again on Wednesday. I noticed that my viewcount dropped dramatically this week, so thank you to anyone who still bothered checking.
I'll make up for the lack of content with erm....SOMETHING.
Something flashy.
Probably me getting deported.
Haha...wow.
Today was full of deja vu.
Or rather, I just am afraid of doing new things or something. Did some stuff online, then watched Iron Man with a friend. Then played Left 4 Dead, then watched Shaun of the Dead.
I have seen both of those movies so many times that I can probably quote the dialogue word for word.
One of the guys on the floor has a Dissidia edition PSP. I'm jealous and le sad. I want one. I want TWO.
Going to town tomorrow for groceries and to get the hell away from campus for once this week. Hopefully have some content then.
Real updates start up again on Wednesday. I noticed that my viewcount dropped dramatically this week, so thank you to anyone who still bothered checking.
I'll make up for the lack of content with erm....SOMETHING.
Something flashy.
Probably me getting deported.
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