rain, rain, go away!

So, this week, because of a shift swap that I had done, I only had one day off. Today was it. And guess what? It's raining again. I think everyday I have off, it rains. Roughly everyday at least. But anyway, I braved the elements and headed into the downtown area of Oomori to check out a couple of places. The first place, which I checked out on my way home last night(after it was closed), was Oomori Bell Port. It's mostly an office building, but it has a bunch of restaurants inside also. It seems that they might also put on concerts there too, I'm not too sure about that, but there was an area that looked like it could be some kind of performance area. As far as the shops and restaurants went, it was a bit of a letdown, not too much going on really, but the architecture was really cool, see
:

So, I just walked around there for a bit, and then I made my way across the street to the Ito Yokado. (notice the large "7&i" logo on the top of the building. 7-11 and Ito Yokado have merged here) I've heard alot about this place, I've been to a few of them before around other stations, but this was the first time to see the one in my hometown here, I just could never find it before. Well, I was impressed. It's really just you're typical department/grocery store, like Fred Meyer's, or something like that, but what seperated it from other Ito Yokodo's I've been to in Japan is that this place was really spacious. It's set up on 3 floors, but you've got room to walk around, and not run into people. While I was there, I stopped by the food court, and came across something I've never seen before, a "Colonel's." "What is that?" you ask? Well, apparently it's not a KFC. But it sure seems like it. They seemed to have maybe some more wraps and sandwich deallys than maybe you're normal KFC, but not really. The one real difference I noticed was that the fries were different. Instead of the wedge style you find at KFC, they had the criss-cross style at Colonel's. I had a chicken sandwich and it was good, but I really couldn't figure out why it was not a KFC really.... kinda curious....

they say it's your birthday, happy birthday to you!

So, tonight was hunbun's b-day, happy b-day hunbun! I had to work late, so tonight, we just had time to go to dinner. We went to a place in Oomori, and, surprise! it wasn't AnAn! I know, I know, "wow" right? Yeah, we decided to try something new. We went to this place that has a pepper for a logo, and living up to the expectations, it was a cornicopia of spicy food. We went with a course menu, and we had some Kimchee cheese thing, nabe (a kind of pot boiled misc. food thing), tofu salad, and a couple of other things. One of those things was some Habenero fried chicken. My god! The hotestest thing I've eaten in my life! I love spicy food. I eat it all the time, and usually don't bat an eye. I've lived through, what I call, the "Indian Death Curry," and the hotest hot wings most places can throw at me. Tonight was different. My god, it was intense. I took one bite, and waited.... It was all good to begin with, but then... it started to come, and it didn't stop, it was intense, I mean really intense. I warned hunbun not to try it, but she did. Big mistake. When they bring the stuff to the table, they give you plastic gloves because your eyes will begin to water, and after touching the chicken, the last thing you should do is touch anywhere around your eye. Hunbun, made this mistake, and experienced some pain. Anyway, the food at the restaurant was really good. I was very impressed, but I'm not going to mess with that chicken again. So, tomorrow, I'm working, but after work I'm meeting up with hunbun, and we are going to hang out this weekend, and do some shopping for her b-day presents. New glasses and a new cell phone. I gave her a couple of things tonight. I gave her some salt&vinegar chips, and a drink maker thing too. I also gave her some cheese cake. She liked it. Good day, I hope it was a good b-day for her too.
Later y'all!

Tribute!

Happy Birthday Hunbun! So, hunbun was born in the year MCMLXXIV. Things were good that year, not because of what happened outside of a hospital located in Omachi, in Nagano prefecture, but what happened inside that hospital. That was the day that the world was introduced to a beautiful little girl. Anyway, I'll save the mushy parts for our face to face meeting later tonight, but I just wanted to let everyone know what else happend the same year that she was born.


MCMLXXIV, what a big year!

Here's some things that happened in that same year:

Richard Nixon resigns.
The number of copies of Pong (or commercial clones of Pong) exceeds 100,000 units.
The Sears Tower in Chicago (the tallest building in the U.S.) opens.
Top 2 grossing films in North America were "the sting," and "the exorcist".
Hank Aaron hit HR #715.
Oakland A's won the World Series over the L.A. Dodgers.
Boston Celtics win the NBA champrionship over the Milwaukee Bucks.
The "rumble in the jungle" happens in Zaire, Africa where Muhammad Ali regains the World Heavyweight Title from George Froman.
Miami Dolphins win Super Bowl VIII over the Minnesota Vikings.

Things that also happened on August 25th, but in different years:

1609: Galileo Galilei demonstrates his first telescope to Venetian lawmakers.
1718: New Orleans, Louisiana is founded.
1825: Uraguay declares its independence from Brazil.
1830: Belgium revolts from the Netherlands.
1916: the U.S. National Parks service is created.
1944: Paris is liberated by the allies in WWII
2002: ESPN's signature show SportsCenter has their 25,000 episode.

Other famous people with the same B-day:

1919: George Wallace
1931: Regis Philbin
1946: Rollie Fingers
1954: Elvis Costello
1958: Tim Burton
1972: Marvin Harrison

So, yeah, that's some stuff with some similarities. Really I wanna say, Happy B-Day hunbun! I'll see you tonight for dinner, and I'll see you more this weekend, you're the greatest!

The internet rules!

So, I'm thinking that maybe people know this already, but, damn, the internet rules! I have just come to realize this over the past few days. For those who don't know, I am a huge football fan. Over the past few days, I have been able to watch about 6 different preseason football games that without the help of the internet, I would never pbe able to watch any other way beign here. Man it's great! Ive been able to watch both of the seahawks preseason games! The first game, was well, pretty "sloppy" as Holmgren put it. Pretty poor outing. The second game was pretty good, I mean, Indy's first team was fairing pretty well, but we held tough, and then the rest of the game we pretty much dominated. It was good stuff. Another game I watched was the Arizona vs. Pittsburgh game. For some reason I was only able to watch the first half of this one, but what I learned is that Arizona looks pretty scarry. Same division as the Hawks... looked really good. Anyway, along with football I've been watching a couple of my favorite shows, Numb3rs, and Avatar. Other than that, I've been checking out a couple of shows I've never seen before, like Prison Break. And some old favorites like CSI, Without a Trace, Aqua Teen, and Cold Case. Yeah the internet basically rules! The last thing I want to talk about is the VLC media player. First of all, it plays almost anything, but the best feature is that you can play videos as a wallpaper. If you look close at the picture you will see all my desktop icons over the video image. It's great! Also, while I've been watching Prison Break on full screen in the background, I've been writing this blog. Way to go internet!!!!

Bikun and boy

So after work on Saturday,I stopped by this tiny O-bon festival here in Oomori. O-bon is a japanese holiday that goes for 3 days kinda. It's hard to really describe because some places don't really celebrate it, at least here in the big city, but then some places have it in July, and some have it in August, go figure. Anyway, it was really small, but afterwards Bikun and I went for a ride to the Tama River. It's the river that seperates Tokyo-to from Kanagawa-ken. ("to" means municipality, and "ken" means prefecture) From my place it's about a 35-40 min ride, and it's not too bad, it's pretty much all flat ground, and it was a really nice ride. I headed out there because I had reports from my students that there might be fireworks along the river that evening, but either I was too late for them, or they were at a different location, either way, I wasn't too dissapointed, I really just went for the ride. I ended up at this park that is right next to the river and has many baseball fields and stuff, and there were several groups of young kids, lighting fireworks and stuff, around. I couldn't really go right down next to the river because along the banks of ther river is where all the homeless people have their.... well... houses. They build these little huts and stuff, and they can pack em up and move them and stuff, it's really quiet amazing ingenuity. Anyway, since it was really dark, and I couldn't tell if there was an opening for me to actually go down to the river's edge, I just hung out on the path behind the homeless' houses and drank a beer and enjoyed the evening. It was cool, but some freaky huge bugs!

weirdness....

So on saturday I was working in Hiroo for the day. It was ok, i guess. Anyway, for lunch I decided to go and check out "Nathan's Famous Hot Dogs." It was ok, a bit overpriced. But the strangest thing happend, I walked in and a foriegn guy was working the register, he said "irashaimase" (welcome) and before I realized what was going on, I just started speaking to him in Japanese. I asked him if the chili dog had onions on it, and unfortunately it did, so I ordered a cheese dog set. Well, I'm pretty sure that this guy probably spoke English on-par with myself, but I made my order, I paid, and all that good stuff that happens at restaurants all in Japanese, and he responded the same. It was very strange, I think it's the first time that has ever happened here. Usually Japanese employees at highly foriegner visited establisments will naturally assume that I don't speak Japanese and just try and speak English to me. Anyway, it was weird....

Inspiration strikes!

So, inspired in part by my witness to the coolest parking job ever, I bought a bike! WahoooOOoo! It's rad, it's name is "bikun." Which is a combination of a japanese pronunciation for bike (baiku) and the name ending (showing familiarity) for dudes (kun). So Here he is:

It's really nice having a bike now, and it's cut my trip to the station by a third! great stuff.

On wednesday, hunbun and I went to see pirates of the carribean 2, and it was pretty cool, kinda corny, but I enjoyed it enough. The theater was really nice, and we had a good time, we went to a Thai restaurant before hand and it wasn't too bad. It was only the 2nd time I've been to the movies here in Japan (the first was about 6 years ago) because it is pretty expensive, about $13 a pop! But it was cool, first movie I've seen in a theater in probably a year in any country. I'd say the special effects were better than the first, the story was worse, and of course it is deffinetly a set-up for the 3rd installment. I'm now looking forward to that, and I think it comes out in march or something crazy like that. I thought Johnny Depp was really good in it, and everyone else was pretty good, but aside from the ship of crazy cursed people again, the only new characters in the movie (a bad english guy, and a voodoo lady) were both pretty weak I thought, oh well!

While we were waiting for the movie to start, hunbun and I went looking at some glasses, because I hate the ones she has now, and I told her I'd buy her some new ones for her b-day. We found a couple of cool ones, and I really liked this one, I think they are really adorable.

the coolest parking job ever!

So today on my way to work I saw, what I must say is, the coolest job of parking a bike I've seen in my life! It was amazing, I almost wanted to stick around to see who was the baddass who did this. But I didn't.

Very close to where this picture was taken I took another picture! Ignoring the grammer and spelling troubles they seem to have, the dish itself just doesn't sound so good....

Tournament of Champions!

So today was the first day of my weekend! whoopie! It was raining for most of the day, and so I decided I would make it "game day." I planned to play 1 game of each of the sports games that I have, but I felt that was a little too... eh... so I decided to turn it into a drinking game. So today I created, completed, and won the first ever "tournament of champions!" It is not easy I will tell you. So the idea is that I play one game of each game, and drink one tall boy for each game played. The total number of sports games I have is 9, and thus I drank 9 tall boys during the tournament. Here are the results, in order:

game #1 NCAA football 06 (W 56-3)
game #2 NFL 2K5 (W 21-13)
game #3 MLB 2K5 (W 4-1)
game #4 Fight Night Round 2 (W 4th round K.O.)
game #5 Top Spin Tennis (W 4 match sweep)
game #6 NBA 2k5 (W 69-47)
game #7 NHL 2K6 (W 3-0)
game #8 Arena Football (W 38-26)
game #9 Tiger Woods 06 (L +2 over par)

I went 8-1 over the tournament, and clocked in a total time of around 6 and a half hours, with 7 bathroom breaks. I'm sure it can be done in a shorter span of time, but I wasn't pushing it as this was the first ever T.O.C. as I said. I was just kinda feeling it all out. I played most of the games on all-star, or all-american difficulty, or the equivalent, and some were a bit touch and go for a bit because I hadn't played many of them for awhile, and I forgot how to play some of them, but all in all it was a good day, next time I'll need an opponent though. Anyway, I ended up going to bed at about 8:30 at night, and woke up around 11:30 and haven't been able to go back to sleep, so here I am... headache and all posting a blog... here's what the aftermath looks like:

The bottom of the barrel...

So, here it is, saturday evening about 10:00, and I'm bored... I finished cleaning my room, I did my dishes, I watched a baseball game, and something called "heros" which seems to be similar to pride or K-1, but I'm not sure how it's similar, or how it's different, since I don't watch either of those either. So, I just went down the street to the Lawson to pick up some beers so I could sit here and put up a post, and not be completely bored outta my mind. So, I picked up 2 cans of beer, and surprise, they are not my best friend, Kirin Ichiban Shibori, but rather they are the previously discussed "happoshu" or 2nd category beer. They are made by Asahi. And one is called "hon nama" which means something along the lines of "original draft" and is in a red can. It also says "koku : kire" which I translte as "full bodied : crisp" maybe... the can says smooth and tasty at the top, so maybe that's what they meant, but I'm not sure about that... The second one is in a blue can, and claims that it's 50% off of something, and something else too, I'm going to look that up now.....well, that took awile. I found the second something fairly easy, it's sugar, now, the first something unfortunately dosen't exist... at least that I know of, so I'm gonna have to do some more research on that. Anyway, the blue can is also called "hon nama" but it apparently is also "aqua blue." So the red one so far is not so good, we'll see how the blue one is later, but I'm not looking forward to it... hey! here they are now!











So, when I was in Kamakura earlier this week, I picked up a pack of "buddha cigarettes." I know, I know, rad right? Well, you're right! However I doubt that the enlightend one would actually condone his likeness on a box of cigs. Well, I have good news for you, they aren't real cigarettes! Yeah! They are actually candy cigarettes, chocolate flavor!




Get the kids started as early as possible I say, actually, I remember when they sold these in the US when I was a kid, and I loved them! Bad, bad candy makers!








So, as you're reading this blog, I bet you're wondering, "hey butt? what are you sitting on?" Well the answer my friend is very simple, it's a chair. But not any chair, for you see this chair is special. "Why?" you ask. Well, very good question! Because it has no legs! "How?" you aks. Another excellent question! I shall show you, oh, I'll show you!



This is my chair! It has no legs, but an adjustable back, and a cool pattern, and I picked this lovely up for a mere 1000 yen, or roughly $9. Rad? yeah, rad! It's quite comfy, and sturdy, and it gives me somewhere to sit also, so it's surely a winner!




Next on the list we have a can of boss cafe au lait. I just wanted to put this on because I like it. That's it really, people in Japan are really into canned coffee, and they sell em cold, or hot. During the winter,
the vending machines will have certain sections devoted to hot drinks that you can get, and most of them are coffee, but they usually will have tea also. I don't go for them so much because the can is freaking hot sometimes! But during the morning I pick one of these up often on my way to the station, they usually sell for 120 yen or roughly $1.10. They aren't too bad




Finnally, I know, "thank god!" I wanted to tell you what I had for dinner this evening... edge of your seat yet? I had.....






TADA!!

That's right, the cheesest! Good 'ol mac&cheese, and it was goooood! It better have been, the stuff cost me over $3! And it's not even the family size! Just the plain old bachelor size. AHHHHHH!!!!! $3 for mac&cheese, $4.50 for 10 flour tortillas! When will this country get it right!?!?!?!? Hopefully soon....
Anyway, for now that's it, I've wasted enough of my time, and yours, now I can head off to bed cuz I gotta get up and go to work tomorrow morning, but at least I can sleep soundly, knowing that I have educated the world!
goodnight!

Kamakura vol.2

So continuing on the theme, the temples and such were really cool, and in the evening hunbun and I took in a fireworks show in Enoshima. It was excellent! Usually I'm not so much into the fireworks, but this was a good show, and a really cool location, right on the beach. We got there early, and set up shop. We put down a plastic tarp thing, and got some snacks and beer, and hung out there for about 3 hours waiting for the show to start. There were tons of people! Tons! it was quite spectacular to see so many young kids and whatnot on a tuesday afternoon/evening, more than I had expected for sure.











So it was a good day, lots of walking and sightseeing, and "many natures" (as I've heard countless times at my job) Kamakura is a pretty rad place, but we were two pooped people after the fireworks show, here's pictures of us being pooped on the train from the show:

Kama Kama Kama Kama Kamakurian....

Yeah, I know, boy george reference, score! So, the trip to Kamakura went swim- mingly. It was quite an interesting place. A little history first: Kamakura was the capital of Japan between 1192-1333. Ok, that's all the history you get. So hunbun and I headed out fairly early in the day so we would have enough time to see a few temples and such before they all closed. I guess the temples are run buy old people because they all close at like 4 o'clock in the afternoon. And what's better is that most of the stores (at least the ones we wanted to go to) are apparently closed on tuesdays, and lucky us, we went on a tuesday! yippie!
But other than that, it was all good. We plan on going back in the fall, maybe not on a tuesday, to see the fall colors which are supposed to be really good in the Kamakura area. Anyway, it was a really fun day, a little too much walking (especially since I played Futsol the night before, and so now my leg is in pain) but we got to see 4 temples, and went to a couple of cool restaurants, but the best thing was the Daibutsu, or "Big (or grand) Buddha." He's rad, and apperently he likes grapefruits, here's a picture of him chilling: