I'm a ramblin' man...

So, I've been here in J-pan for alost 7 months now and I feel like it's been pretty... fruitless for the most part. I've had some good times, work's good, life's good, but it's just so... so... normal. One reason is that I haven't been studying enough. The main reason/excuse I have is that it's very difficult to find any motivation to study when I come home after teaching English all day. I did however get a chance to actually speak alot of Japanese the other night when I met up with fu-chan and her husband, but besides that I rarely get to use anything besides "fukuro ha ii desu" (I don't need a bag) and "tamanegi nuki de" (no onions). It's a bit dissapointing, I mean my japanese has held up pretty good, but really I haven't put in much study in the past 4 years or so, just been stagnant... I gotta do something about that...

The other thing that is kinda depressing me is that I haven't been out of this city much, not enough. I've been out to Osaka once, and I've been down to Kamakura. I've also been up to Saitama, and over to Kanagawa, but it's not enough. Even travelling around Tokyo has been kept to a minimal. I've been to the baseball stadiums in the city, and I've been to some new places, but seems to be few and far between. Inspired by my venture to Ueno on tuesday I'm planning on possibly visiting a couple of other museums next week if I have time, and money. I've got the money, just trying to save for the trip up to Nagano (more on that in a min.) Anyway, I'm planing possibly to head out to Chiba and take in some Ando Hiroshige prints. I've never been out to Chiba (except the airport) and I've never seen Hiroshige's prints before, and I'm a big fan, so I really would like to get out there. There is also a show in Akasaka Mitsuke featuring a French artist who kinda took inspiration from another famous Ukiyo-e (Japanese woodblock print) artist named Hokusai. Hokusai did a series of prints called "37 views of Mt. Fuji," and this French artist, named Henri Riviere, did a series called "37 views of the Eifel Tower." Seems like it could be interesting, I'll report on them if I get out to see them. So the next trip is happening the weekend before my b-day when hunbun and I head up to Matsumoto to visit fu-chan and her husband. It should be good times, drink some Tequilla and get out of the city! The last trip, currently under consideration, is a trip to beijing. "Beijing?" you ask. Yes indeed. August 2007! Dude? and I are thinking about heading out there to take in a game. "What kind of game?" you ask. Well, good question! A football game! The Seahawks are slated to play the Patriots in Beijing in August 2007. First game ever in China, and it would be a great experience I'm thinking. Could be an event! And for sure a trip out of this city! I'll keep you updated.

Tha King

I told some students awhile back about a picture that I had made when I was in college. I made it probably 7 years ago or so for an art history class I was taking at B.C.C., and worked it into 2 final class projects. It worked out pretty good, and I'm pretty proud of it, only took an afternoon :) Anyway, shout out to No-rico, hope you like it!

Typhoon, or not typhoon...

Well, it's been awhile since I've posted anything, mostly because I'm lazy, but also because I've been busy. Got some good stuff to talk about, namely saturday, monday and tuesday. First I wanted to say that again my weekend was washed out. Last week it rained a bit while I was at the Baystars game, but it wasn't to bad at all, but this week, my-o-my, it was a raging storm for the most part. Yesterday it rained almost all day, and today it was just dumping all morning. It's been mostly clear this afternoon, but when I woke up this morning there was some crazy lightning and thunder, I don't think I've ever heard thunder that loud before. Anyway on to some better things than the weather...

Saturday: Saturday was the 6th installment of the "Harajuku Cocktail Experience." It was probably the best one I've been to thusfar. I've been to about 3 of Master Slayer's parties, and this one was raging! Really good times, everyone had a really good time it seemed, that is until the fuzz showed up... They came by around 12:30 or so, and just told everyone to move it inside, and quiet down. It was really different than the cops back home, they were actually pretty cool. Anyway, thanks master slayer, it was a rad time! See you Oct. 21st for vol. 7!

Monday: On monday I worked until 5:40 and then went home, changed, and headed out to Shibuya to meet some friends. I never go down to Shibuya cuz it's full of young and crazy people. Anyway, I met up with and old friend, Fu-chan, and her husband, Yu-chan. Fu-chan is hunbun's best friend, they go way back, and are from the same town up in Nagano. Hunbun and I are going to visit them up in Matsumoto in about 2 weeks, and I'm very excited, but they were in town to visit Disneyland and so we had the chance to go out to dinner, hunbun showed up late because she had to do some more overtime :( So, we went to T.G.I. Fridays in shibuya and had a good time, it had been about 4 years since I had seen Fu-chan, and the first time I had ever met her husband, it was really cool. Fu-chan is like a sister too me, and so all night we just talked about old times and stuff, it was really cool, and her husband was really cool too. Yu-chan's sister also joined us and she, in fact, works for the same company as me but at a different branch. She was pretty cool too, and all together it was a pretty cool night, thanks guys, see you in 2 weeks!


Tuesday: Tuesday was of course a fairly miserable day weather-wise, but I took a train ride up to Ueno, and visited the "Ueno no mori museum." They were having a special "centennial retrospective" for Salvador Dali. It was for the 100th anniversary of Dali's birth (which was actually 1904 so... a couple years late?). Anyway, it was pretty cool, I saw many of his famous works and it was really cool to see them in person since I am a big Dali fan, interesting to see the actual size of the pieces themselves. Some of them were much smaller than I had imagined. They, unfortunately, didn't have on hand my favorite painting of his, "The Temptation of St. Anthony," so that was a bit dissapointing, but I got to see some of his sketches, and that was really neat, much cooler than seeing the paintings that I've seen a hundred times in books, actually seeing his hand drawn sketches was really cool!

So, that's my week(end) in a nutshell, if anything else happens between now and later, I'll let you know, peace out homie!

Baystars Bazooooooooka!

Happy day! How is everyone? Great! Tuesday I went to another Baystars game. That's the team that represents Yokohama. It was the first team that I liked when I came to Japan, because I was staying in Yokohama at that time. It was great, the first time I've seen them win. They are pretty much the worst team in the Central League. I would say the worst team, but there are the Rakuten Eagles over in the Pacific League, and they are just terrible. Yokohama Baystars do pretty much scrape the bottom of the league.

But, anyway, it was really cool, I went with deuce, who is a big baystars fan, and we had a great time. Baystars went up 7-0 and ended up holding on for an 8-5 victory. At the same time dude? was at the Tigers game, watching the Tigers beat the Swallows to put them within 5 games of the league leading Chunichi Dragons, who the Baystars beat. Anyway, with probably about 10 games left in the season it's gonna take a miracle to get the Tigers into 1st, but I'm still holding out hope... In the Pacific league there's also about 10 games left in the season. The difference is that in the Pa League there are playoffs. So, now, the top three teams are jockeying for position. The top three teams are: Fukuoka Softbank Hawks, Seibu Lions, and Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters. I'm pulling for the Lions of course, and it's important for them to finish in first because the other two teams would have to play eachother for the right to play the lions.

Anyway, after the game we went back to deuce's homeground of Tsunashima. We went drinking at Shirokiya, and then afterwards we let off some bottle rockets on a bridge near the Tama River. It was good times.

In other news, I busted out my long sleeve shirts! It's cooled down considerably over the past couple of weeks, and I'm just about ready to give up my cool biz short sleeve shirts and go back to my regular long sleeve dress shirts for work, it's pretty exciting. I spent awhile ironing them out, and I might bust one of them out for work tomorrow if it's cool enough.

Old people rule!

Well, what's happening? Oh, not much, you? Not alot. But guess what? Monday was a holiday, it was old people's day! Yeah! Well, I guess nicely translated it's "respect for the elderly day." But that's boring, and I like "old people" better, so happy old people's day everyone! Anyway, it's just another in the long line of holidays over here that really mean that everyone gets the day off of work except me... sad... Oh well, it wasn't too busy at work, and monday's my friday, so, whoha! or something. Well, really the big news was that Yoshinoya was serving Gyudon for one day only! Yeah! About 100,000 bowls for the whole country, and I got one of them. I also got a "tenugui," which is a kind of thin washcloth, as a gift, for being one of the first 10,000 people! Yahoo!

It was actually not such a big deal at my neighborhood Yoshinoya, I came at like 11:30 (they started serving gyudon at 11:00) and I waited in a line for maybe 10 mins at the most, and then sat down and ate my (american beef) bowl. The line for take out seemed to be much longer, and I'm not sure why, but I think I heard that it was about an hour wait at the time I went, but, all together it took me about 20 mins to wait, eat, and get out. At Yurakucho (also Tokyo) apprently there were some crazier lines and such, as one university student lined up at 11:00pm on Sunday to be the first one in Japan to eat a bowl. The dude waited 12 hours for meat, rice, and onions... crazy fool! Anyway, Yoshinoya's Gyudon has kinda a cult following over here. Overall it wasn't too bad, the gyudon itself was a bit lacking on the taste side compared to what I remember, but I guess it's to be expected when they have to make so much at the same time, it doesn't get to simmer long enough or something, but it was a nice treat, I haven't had real, yoshinoya gyudon in about 4 years or so. Good times!
Tonight I'm heading out to Yokohama stadium to watch a game with Deuce, I'll put up some pics later.

Herro Kitty!

So, as requested by grandpa, here is a picture of the famed Hello Kitty bike that haunts my existance. Enjoy!

margaritaville!

Payday baby! Friday was payday, so a bunch of us teachers went out to Ebisu and visited a place called "Zest." It was pretty cool, and I had totally forgot about it as I had actually been there about 6 years ago. It's kind of a tex-mex restaurant and I ended up getting some make your own tacos deal, and it was good, but a bit spendy for the amount, but the highlight of the evening was the pitchers of margaritas that were plentiful! There were 3 types to choose from: Strawberry, Mango, and Lime. We got a couple of the mango, none of the lime, and tons of the strawberry. Wow, it was a heck of a night, lots and lots of margaritas! They were good, and they were pretty strong. Well, after mountains and mountains of margaritas,
we headed off to Harajuku, where the art of seduction lives. Rock n' Roll! We walked from Ebisu to Harajuku and it took roughly an hour... possibly more... I don't really remember. It was a kinda crazy walk, lots of good conversations all around. About 8 of us in all made the trek. Anyway, after arriving we drank some more, and had some more great conversations, but ended up going to sleep around 5:30 maybe, and had to work the next morning at 10. Of course working at 10 means getting there around 9:30-:45 and we ended up getting up around 8:30 or so. Anyway,it was a rough day... wowza!

On the aisle

So, here it is, my weekend again, and wow, it's raining again! Wahoo! I'm thinking that's about 6 weeks in a row where it has rained on one, or both of my days off. CRAP! Well, I decided to make the most of it and catch up on some movies that I haven't been able to check out before, and watch some classics as well. I thought that I would run down the list, and go through and review them also. So, to start with, I injured my leg playing futsol sunday night, so I didn't go play on monday night, but I had done a shift swap, so I ended up getting off at 2 in the afternoon. It's now about 8pm on thursday, I gotta go back to work tomorrow, but it's been almost like a 3 day weekend. Anyway, I had alot of time to watch movies...
So, the list goes: 40 year old virgin, Talledega Nights, Anchor Man, Over the Hedge, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Office Space, Ace Ventura Pet Detective, Fast and the Furious Tokyo Drift, and X-men Last Stand.

40 Year Old Virgin: **
So, this movie was alright, it was kind of like a dumbed down version of Office Space. It had some really good lines in it, but all-in-all, it was less than great. The acting wasn't too bad, but the plot was just eh... it could have deffinately been better.

Talledega Nights: *1/2
This movie was, well... a way to kill an hour and a half. It, like the 40 year old virgin had some decent lines in it, but they were pretty rare, and the plot of the movie was pretty poor. I would have to say that Will's performance in it was probably the best I've ever seen him, but the movie was pretty corny.

Anchor Man: **
I watched this one and wasn't really dissapointed. It was pretty much what I expected. Never really had a desire to see it before, but I was bored. Again, a way to kill some time. It had a few good moments (my fav was Jack Black booting the dog off of the bridge) and there were a few good lines in this one again. The reason it got a bit better rating than Talledega Nights was really the plot. Will's acting was OK, but the story was decent, until really the last 30 mins of the movie or so, it got stoopid.

Over the Hedge: *
Wow, I've never heard the term "kill you," or a variation of it, so many times in a kids movie before. It was really quite disturbing... The animation in this movie was really good, some excellent work really, but the plot, the over use of star power for the voice talents, and the script were just dumb. That's all.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: ***
Well, I'd heard alot of good things about this movie, but I was worried it would be a bit too artsy for my taste, but I always was interested in it because of Jim. It ended up being pretty good. It had alot of cool direction in it, alot of interesting camera effects as they told the story. The story was pretty good, somewhat predictable, but well written, well acted, and really put together well. There were a few parts that were lacking, mostly the people in his bedroom while Jim's getting his memory erased.

Office Space: ****
Some people might question how I could give this movie 4****'s but I love it!!! I've seen it many times, and I still love it! It reminds me alot of being in college. It has a great story, great acting, great lines like "no talent ass clown" etc. It's just a really good movie, if you haven't seen it, you must.

Ace Ventura Pet Detective: ****
Now this movie, if you don't know why it's a 4 star movie, watch it, just watch it. It's f'n brilliant. The story is corny, but any movie about a pet detective has to be. But really, it's all about Jim Carey's acting. This was his breakout, his first gig after In Living Color (which if you haven't seen that, please, please watch it!) and it was really cool. It's just hilarious all around.

Fast and the Furious Tokyo Drift: 1/2
Wow! someone dropped a bomb on this one, what a stinker!!! whoa! Not that it had alot to live up to with the other two previous installments, but good lord! I gave this one a half star simply because of one shot of shibuya where I said, "hey it's shibuya!" Other than that, this movie sucked, big time.

X-men Last Stand: **1/2
Don't know really what to say here, it was pretty exicing, good for a #3 in the series, but nothing spectacular. I would like to argue the casting of Frasier as Beast though. Not that I'm all geeky about X-men or anything, but, c'mon, I thought the Beast was like a big dude right? I know he's all smart and stuff, but Frasier is a wimp! Still the movie was entertaining, a bit over the top, and to my surprise (since it's called "last stand") sets itself up for another one...

hello kitty strikes again!

well, well, well... I took a quick ride to 99 shop (kyu kyu shop) to pick up some juice. I've been drinkin vodka and juice this evening, and I ran out of juice, and I rode down to the 99 shop to pick up some more. I rode like the wind! It took maybe 5 mins there and back, and when I got back, guess what!?! the hello kitty bike was in my spot! damn! it's amazing, it's like the hello kitty bike has it in for me! ahhhhhh! as I said before, I wanna burn it!!!

ball games, beef bowls, and pulled groins....

Whassappining y'all! (shout out to e-diddy!) It's been awhile, how ya doing? I gotta tell everyone that the new Audioslave album is worth checking out, if you like rage against the machine, you'll here guitar work that sounds just like the old stuff, and if you liked the later soundgarden (which I really didn't, but I like the audioslave version) you'll enjoy it also, just been listening to it today, and I never really talk about music much on here. Anyway, I thought I'd start off with, what else, a baseball game!!!
It was decided that there would be a venture to the Tokyo Dome this time, and many of you (like "many" people read this!) may know, I'm not much for domes, but it really wasn't my choice. I went with a couple of co-workers, GD and Deuce (New Balance), previously referred to by different names in a blog some time back, but from now on referred to as GD and deuce. We went to the Giants x Swallows game, and it was ok.... i guess... I mean, I had fun, but the game and the stadium is pretty much shite. Swallows lost, which means the G&%#ts won. It was a close game, but the Swallows couldn't do anything on offense and dropped the game 2-1. Dissapointing as GD and his friends were all Swallows fans, and I, myself, am an anti-giants fan.
There were some highlights to the evening, one of which was this scene, and the fact that visiting the Tokyo Dome was kind of a homecoming for me in a couple of ways: the first game I ever saw in Japan was a game in the Tokyo Dome (and in fact it was a game between the Giants and Swallows then too) about 6 years ago, on my first trip to Japan. I ended up sitting fairly close to where hunbun and I sat o' those many years ago, and the Tokyo Dome is also one stop away from where I used to attend college. I didn't stop by my old school, mostly because I was in no shape to do so, and it was late, but I did happen to go by the station (completely on accident, I took the train the wrong way....). Anyway, the highlight of the evening (for everyone) was an encounter after the game at Korakuen station (the subway station in front of the Tokyo Dome) between us and a fellow foreinger. Now I am ashamed to admit that I think he was american, but this guy was a piece of work. We were having a good time reveling in our loss, singing songs and such, and all the giants fans around us were enjoying our spectical, but this american dude decided to make it his personal mission to ruin our time. He got in my face, and GD's face, and was talking about "beef." I think his exact words were: "you want beef?" "something, something something," of course we didn't really, but there was also 6 of us, and only him and his gay lover (there's nothing wrong with that), so he really should have just kept quiet, but he was just trying to be a big man to impress his "partner." Anyway, nothing happend really, we just laughed at him a whole bunch, but the real moral lesson is that the only person who ever talked about "beef," and was cool, was Biggie Smalls, a.k.a. Notorious B.I.G. (R.I.P), so people, don't do it, just don't do it!
But, speaking of beef, I have wondeful news!
Beef bowls are back! Yoshinoya, Japan's premiere Gyudon (beef bowl) establishment, is going to have a one day beef bowl extraveganza! So, in japan, for about 3-4 years, there has been a ban on american beef. This was in reaction to the discovery of mad cow desease found in U.S. beef. Yoshinoya claimed that their recipe was only good with american beed, and thusly has not produced their famed beef bowls since the ban (aside from one day when they unleashed their remaining stockpile on the Japanese public causing a frenzy) selling only a weaker version, the "buta-don," or pork bowl. Well, they are back at it. About a month and a half ago, the ban was finnally lifted, and now it's cool to buy beef from america again! So, I'm not sure why they are only doing it for one day, but maybe it's just the beginning....

So, the last thing is my pulled groin... well, it's not really a pulled groin, but I thought I might get another couple of listeners using it in the title. I hurt myself playing futsol last night. It's roughly an upper-inner thigh pull, and it's painful. Unfortunately I couldn't join in on tonights game :( Anyway, that's about it for now, peace out y'all!