Japan Loves Poop, Fukushima Edition

I TOLD you Japan loves poop! Here's another example of it: a PSA for kids explaining the Fukushima reactor situation by comparing it to poop and farts. Nuclear Boy has to poop and everyone's worried about it! It's subbed in English so we can all learn something from Nuclear Boy's digestive issues.

Pictures from my phone

If you're anything like me (and let's hope you're not), you take a bajillion photos of everything with your phone.  Ever since getting my fancy high tech (cheapest available) Japanese cell phone, I've accumulated a bunch of goofy pictures, so I thought I'd share!

To start, here are some from yesterday:

In my 1st grade class, the students had to give short speeches about things they like to do.  I also had them draw a picture. This one was done by Rena, age 7, super Japanese Michael Jackson fan.  Isn't it fantastic?!  Kid art = best art

It was also the last day of class so I got a picture with them on my phone.  Great kids!

And here's a few other things:

Yohei the bulldog!  About a month ago Joanna and I and our mutual friend Machiko went to a Japanese cooking class.  It was fun, but difficult, and entirely in Japanese.  It was also at the teacher's house, so we got to meet her dog.  He was my atarashii tomodachi (new friend).

I'M A HUGGER.  RECESS DON'T LAST FOREVER!  WITH ALIEN.  Japan loves Toy Story 3.

A great anti-smoking sign on the train.  Don't flick cigs unless you live in an old movie, hombre!

For some reason the Japanese version of Twilight all have this girl wearing a Dracula cape.

Yep, we're kind of a big deal.  They always make these great advertisements for the sign outside our school.  Here's me and Jeremy lookin' super fly.  Let's study English together and look BOSS doing it!

I've got a bunch more but that's all I have on the computer at the moment.  Bye for now!

Onomichi -- Land of a Thousand Temples (and Cats)

Onomichi is an ancient city on the coast of the Seto Inland Sea, about an hour and ten minutes away from Hiroshima by train.  And let me say this, straight out of the gate: the place is quaint.  It's so quaint that the residents of Amish villages all across the United States look at Onomichi and despair of ever attaining such an overwhelming level of quaintness.  Like, it should be against the law to be this flippin' quaint.

But I digress.  Onomichi is famous for being a picturesque little place with winding back streets of almost Byzantine complexity and old houses that once sheltered famous Japanese writers and artists.  Apparently, TV shows and movies are often filmed here.  And the city boasts an overabundance of exactly two things: temples and cats.

Look at this little bus!  It's like our own personal Quaint-mobile!

The first of many kitties we ran across on our journey down the winding temple pathway.  Onomichi's citizens love its numerous stray cats and have even placed posters on storefronts indicating each cat's name and familial relationship to the other cats in the area.

...And you know me.  I just love me some cats!

What an artistic shot.  It's as if this cat is frozen in its tracks by the sudden realization that you can never really go back...

The first of the 25 temples along the temple pathway.  One of the weird things about most of our pictures from Onomichi is this soft, ethereal glow that seems to permeate the background.  Ryan says it's just a quirk of the lighting.  I say it's...I dunno, Buddha or somebody.

There's a Japanese superstition that says if you can land a rock on top of one of these torii gates, your wish will come true.  You can see my rock in midair on the right side of the gate.  And while it looks like I'm about to land that sucker and achieve my heart's desire, I regret to inform you that this is not the case and that I still do not possess my own theme song that plays whenever I enter a room.

The temple pathway involved a lot of stairs.  It also involved some charmingly antiquated signs (at right) warning visitors of the dangers of thieves and darumas.

More stairs!  They don't look all that steep from this angle, but trust me: we were thoroughly winded!

A three story pagoda from about halfway up the pathway.

A cute little miniature pavilion from about three-quarters of the way up the path.  It sort of looks like it's made of Legos.  Thanks, tilt-shift!

Once you've conquered the mountain pathway and have reached the holiest of holies at the top, you are accosted by booth after booth of temple-related merchandise, including a little cartoon bear-head upon which you can write a prayer to the gods.  Either these are some very irreverent gods, or the above-mentioned cartoon bear is assuming way too much importance in Japanese culture.

A woman carries here small, horn-tootin' son aloft while a miniature wolf nips at her knees.  Significance?  I don't know, unless this really happened in Onomichi at some point in history.

We celebrated the completion of our journey with one of Japan's greatest delights: soft cream!

That heavenly glow started getting out of control at this point.  I'm just trying to ham it up in front of a pagoda, but I look like I'm being bodily assumed into the afterlife.  What a drag.

The biggest tree I've ever personally seen.  It's 1100 years old and photos cannot do it justice.  Even with me in the picture for scale, it somehow doesn't look nearly as gigantic here as it did in real life.

I told you Onomichi residents love cats!  In addition to all the posters, we saw several stones painted to look like cats and placed in strategic locations around the temples.

Each temple had an accompanying graveyard.  This one was particularly large.

We cap off our day at Onomichi with a little visit to our good friend, Ultraman.  Notice the righteous glow around Ultraman's right arm.  FOR JUSTICE!

A Nice Day for a Western-Style Wedding

Hey gang, it's me again! We're really making up for lost time with all these posts, ain't we?

Well, this time around, I wanna talk to you about a very sensitive subject: love and marriage.  You see, recently, Ryan and I were able to attend a celebration following the nuptials of his co-worker, Satsuki.  That's right -- we were invited to a Japanese wedding reception!

Of course, we couldn't show up wholly unprepared.  We had to get in the mood first.  And what better thing to put oneself in a romantic frame of mind than a little rock?

Yes, I admit it.  We went to a rock concert right before the reception.  In our wedding clothes.  Crushed amidst a horde of sweaty, beer-stained young people.  And the lame thing is, the band we went to see (Sambomaster) had to cancel because of the earthquake in Sendai!  Oh well.  At least we got to see these cool dudes, Kegawa no Maries, who sounded a lot like the Ramones or the Rolling Stones mixed with occasional traces of rockabilly flare.  And check out the hair!

We only got to see about 15-minutes-worth of this band before we had to dash off to the reception.  Their name was Dohatsuten, and apparently they bill themselves as an R&E group.  R&E, of course, stands for rhythm and enka (Japanese folk music).  As you can probably tell from this picture, that descriptor is a load of bull roar -- they were straight-up heavy rock.  Which is what everyone was there to hear in the first place, so it worked out nicely.

The bride and groom, Satsuki and Tsuyoshi.  This was Satsuki's third or fourth dress in the course of the day's proceedings.  Japanese women typically change dresses multiple times on their weddings days.  This is cumbersome but not particularly expensive, since they usually rent rather than buy their get-ups.  That said, Satuki actually bought this frock.  When I expressed my admiration, she offered to sell it to me, but I unfortunately don't have six gajillion dollars in savings.

Satuki attempts to feed her new husband some strawberry wedding cake with the aid of a fork and an anime blindfold.

Ryan and his co-workers perform a dance to Morning Musume's "Happy Summer Wedding."  The girl in the front row with the red skirt and peach top is our friend Mika.  They tall guy in the back with the white head-scarf is our friend Jeremy.  You can't see it in this picture, but attached to the front of said head-scarf was a black-and-white picture of Satsuki's face with hearts on it.

And there, in the back row, a vision in a red skirt and pale peach head-scarf, is Mr. Ryan McConnell.  He had a solo to sing midway through the song, but I failed to capture it on film because the drunk Japanese dudes behind me kept jostling me around.  Man, those guys were tanked.

Jeremy strikes a coy pose while delivering his solo.  I think everyone is bowing down before him because he bears the Satsuki hat?  I dunno, it was a weird night!

Jeremy attempts to steal a kiss from the groom, but Tsuyoshi isn't fooled by the ersatz Satsuki for a moment.

One of the fantastic signs Ryan made for the reception.

The second sign Ryan made as a wedding present to Satuski.  Turned out nice, no?

Life's a Peach!

Greetings all! As we near the month of April, so too do we draw closer to Japan's legendary cherry blossom season. Before long, the country will be awash in sakura and fantastically drunk office workers. It'll be so beautiful...

In the meantime, dear friends, please enjoy the less-celebrated but gorgeous-in-its-own-right blooming of the peach blossoms! Unfortunately, our cameras couldn't capture the aroma of said blossoms, which was heavenly. I can't stress enough how good and sweet these things smelled. It must have been the best smell I've ever smelled. And I've smelled cake!

We got lost on the way to the gardens and stumbled across Youth Festa, a small fair operated entirely by Hiroshima's young people.  There were snacks, wares for purchase, and lots of cool dances.  Also, a giant papier mache carp.  At least, this is what a carp would look like if carp were beautiful instead of heinous.

One of the dances at Youth Festa.  We couldn't tell if the girl on the left was of African descent or just in black face.  Neither would surprise me -- Japanese people aren't out-and-out racist, but they have curious lapses when it comes to racial sensitivity.  Someday, I'll post a picture of a sign we found for an Indian curry restaurant bearing an apron-clad golliwog.  (Maybe.  If my soul will suffer me to gaze upon it again).

A tea ceremony that we were too cheap to attend.  Perhaps it was for the best -- while there was a sort of austere beauty to the proceedings, they also involved a lot of sitting perfectly still and watching the dude in the corner wipe down his ceramics set with a tiny brush.  Guess I'm not quite refined enough for what many consider the pinnacle of Japanese cultural sophistication.

Ryan decides to test out his camera's tilt-shift function.  For those who aren't Erin McConnell, tilt-shift is a photographic effect that basically makes things look all miniature and cool.  The things is, these islands were already designed to be miniatures.  So now they're like...DOUBLE MINIATURE.  (Did I just blow your mind?)

Blossoms aplenty!  The purple-ish flowers are the plum blossoms mentioned in a previous post.  The white ones are the (magnificently fragrant!) peach blossoms.

Some plum blossoms that hadn't yet fallen from their branches.  I know we're supposed to focus on the peach blossoms here, but I love the lighting in this picture.

Don't you wish you could just shove your nose right into the middle of one of these flowers and inhale until your eyes rolled back in your head?  Yes, you do!

Delicate white on somber purple.  No wonder Japanese people love their blossoms so much. :)

There's no better way to cap off a day of blossom viewing than with a little one-eyed-wolf viewing.  This guy resides in a storefront window in downtown Hiroshima.  What does this store sell?  Grievously injured taxidermy specimens, apparently.

UFO Catcher in the Rye

Hi everyone.  We have some posts coming about our recent happenings on the way, but right now I have a confession to make.

I am addicted to UFO Catchers.

Yes, Japanese claw machines.  You might remember a post I made about Stripey-kun, the big ol' rabbit pillow I won.  And you might recall the one about Pyon-Pyon the hopping bunny ball.  But since then I think I've developed a problem.  Every other day during my lunch break, I walk over to the local arcade and try my hand at the UFO Catchers.  This is not to say that the tries are always successful.  There are some days when I walk away with nothing but 500 less yen in my pocket.  But other days I am unstoppable.  A golden god.  A force to be reckoned with.  A terrifying stuffed animal winning machine.

It's pretty bad.  I even got my co-worker Jeremy hooked UFO Catchers too.  A few weeks ago we went to Round 1 (the arcade/bowling alley/karaoke/golf/baseball entertainment Thunderdome we posted about awhile back) with the sole intention of winning toys.  Several hours and a good chunk of money later, this was the result:

ONLY GLORY

Yeah, altogether we won like 15 things.  It was insane.  The whole time we were discussing strategies for the machines.  Use the claw to push, not to lift!  Rotate the ring to make it fall off the hook!  STROKE IT FIRST!  And every time we won something it was a celebration.  After I won that giant pink llama (excuse me, ALPACA) we were so darn happy Jeremy gave me a bear hug and picked me up.  We are 24-year-old men.

Here are some of my other glorious prizes:

All my Pokemon dolls.  These baskets used to be for fruit.

As an aside, they got rid of the machine that had these guys in it.  Jeremy and I suspect it was because between the two of us we cleaned 'em out every day.

My big game trophies.  Use the cellphone for a sense of scale.

(help me)

It should be noted that the toys in UFO Catchers are WAY better quality than the stuff in claw machines back home.  They're all really durable and made of good materials.  Additionally, you can ONLY get them from UFO Catchers - they aren't sold in stores. 

... okay, I know, I'm trying to justify my addiction here.  It's only a matter of time before winning a Pikachu doll is the only thing that'll get me to "normal."  Already I'm getting withdrawls.  And I haven't played a UFO Catcher since... yesterday.

It might be a waste of money and kind of a silly addiction.  But let me put it this way: did drugs ever win you a giant pink alpaca?

So Much Cooler Than That Winter Fairy Thing

You may remember music artist Kaela Kimura from my not-so-flattering post on her infectious hit, "Winter Fairy."

Well, as it turns out, I need to give her a little more credit.  I saw this three-year-old video for her single "Jasper" last Saturday during karaoke, and it is one of the coolest PV's I've ever clapped eyes on.  Seriously, people -- it's neat-o.  I'm not sure if it quite atones for that jerk fairy melting all those innocent snowmen, but it's a start.

By the way, I don't know who Jasper is, nor do I know what he's supposed to be inside.  Sorry!

 Click to watch :)

Japan Tracks 2

Hey all you hip cats and groovy chicks!  It's time for another round of the hot new tunes that are sweeping Japan from coast to coast!  Take a perilous slide down the cutting edge of the Japanese music scene -- or at least check out some tracks that have slowly come to my attention over the past several weeks thanks to the pachinko parlor near the bus stop playing them on a near-constant loop.

And I ain't including that dang Avril Lavigne song.  Even though it's everywhere right now.  I.  Am.  Not.  Including.  It.

Kara - "Jumping"
I briefly mentioned Kara before, in connection with fellow musical act Girl's Generation, as an example of a Korean group that had made it big in the Land of the Rising Sun.  Kara seems a little bit more adult than Girl's Generation.  They also seem to have some obsession with wearing black in their videos and then switching to white at key moments to heighten the dramatic tension.  It doesn't always work, but props to them for sticking with the same iffy gimmick through multiple videos.  You can't say these gals ain't consistent!

You also can't say the hook in this track doesn't sound like a mangled version of the Mortal Kombat theme.






Big Bang - "My Heaven
What's this?  Another Korean group?  Man, Japan sure is loving K-Pop these days. 

I became acquainted with Korean hip-hop act Big Bang sometime during college, and I've regretted it ever since.  They are, first and foremost, relentlessly lame.  Which explains the embarrassingly lame quality of this song.  When I first started hearing it everywhere, I didn't know it was the latest from Big Bang, but I really should have guessed.   

Man, this song is stupid!

Hinamatsuri: Girl's Day

Because I can't let any Japanese holiday pass without notice, I wanted to make a brief post about Girl's Day (Hinamatsuri).  Girl's Day is full of everything girls like; namely, delicious rice cakes, obscenely expensive dolls modeled after the now-defunct court of the Japanese Emperor, and threats of marital ruin.

Every Hinamatsuri, little Japanese girls unpack sets of intricately-dressed Japanese dolls.  These sets can consist of a simple king-and-queen pair (if your family lives in a cardboard box) or a group of twelve or thirteen royals and courtiers (if your parents love you).  The girls set their dolls up on a multi-tiered display platform before chowing down on rice cakes.  And as far as I can tell, that's the extent of the festivities on Hinamatsuri.

Oh, except that if you don't take the dolls down by the following day, they'll make it so you never get married.  Thanks, dolls!

"We are vindictive jerks!"

GUNPLA Gundam Action!

Hey y'all! Sorry we've been so not-posty lately. February was a pretty blah month without much to report (besides what we've reported already). We've got some catching up to do, and I'm gonna start it with this post on GUNDAMS.

GUNDAM.

What is Gundam?  That thing above is a Gundam.  More specifically, it's a long-running animation sci-fi series about people who pilot giant robots called, well, Gundams. They fight each other, they philosophize, they discuss war and politics, but mostly they just fight each other. It's immensely popular in Japan and internationally as well, so much that it's been referred to as Japan's Star Wars. They even built a life-sized Gundam in Shizuoka.

For the love of Gundam!

As a middle schooler I watched the English version of "Gundam Wing" every afternoon on Cartoon Network.  It wasn't a very good Gundam series - there was a lot of talking and brooding and boring political treason I didn't care about.  Still, I kept watching because by the end it was always ROBOT FIGHTS.  And boy were the robots cool!  I went as far as to import the nicely articulated snap-together Gundam model kits from Japan, called GUNPLA.  I loved me some Gundams.

... Which is why I was so excited to hear there was a GUNPLA expo showing in downtown Hiroshima!  Of course, we went and it was sweet.  Here are some pictures from it:

The poster.  So exciting!

All sorts of radical GUNPLA Gundam models.  You can get an idea of just how many different Gundam series there are.  Look at em all!

They had a part where famous people customized their own Gundam models.  This is one is a Zaku II customized by American rock party guy Andrew W.K.

And this one is by Japanese J-Pop pretty-boy Gackt.

This was a really big and really complicated model - they had to put together all of the Gundam's inner machinery as well!

At the end of the exhibit there was a shop selling GUNPLA models.  I bought one and I talked Joanna into getting one too.  It was a lot of fun to put them together - like a magical time trip back to 8th grade!

Here's Joanna working hard on her lil' robot.  You can see the pieces the models come in.

Our finished Gundams!  Mine is on the left, Joanna's is on the right.  We got the cutesy "SD" or "Super Deformed" Gundams.

Alternate weapons!  What's cool about GUNPLA models is that they're not like other static model kits - they're more like really poseable little action figures you build yourself.  They always come with loads of extra stuff.

So that's our Gundam report.  Hopefully we'll be building more GUNPLA kits in the future - they're really cheap here compared to the old import rates!

Again, sorry for the delay - we'll have more posts up soon.  Till then, じゃあね!