Engrish at its finest.

Hey y'all!

Things are going pretty well. I think it's safe to say that we're pretty settled by now. Granted, I still feel illiterate everywhere I go, but hopefully I can change that soon enough with some Japanese classes.

Speaking of which, the use of "English" here is...interesting to say the least. Since Val and I can't read a lick of Japanese, we often rely on the English signage and labels that seem to be in abundance. The only thing is, you can't trust it! It doesn't make any damn sense! Here, look at this:




See what I mean? They have a whole paragraph of nonsensical garbage. Just when you think it's going somewhere, bam! Question mark city. For some reason I keep thinking whatever they write probably sounds awesome in Japanese but it's a tad lost in translation.

It's also funny seeing the Engrish on the clothing that people wear here. My 2 fav's so far was a dude that had 'FUCK' woven into the gloves he was wearing. Ballsy I'd say..but then again, no one gets the joke here. I'm still thinking I can probably wear some t-shirt that has something ridiculously obscene on it. Perhaps I'll try it someday. The other awesome shirt I saw was on this 7 year old kid in Costco. It said "PISSING IN THE RIVER". All caps! I tried to get a picture of it, but I'd look like the weird one trying to take a picture of a little boy. Very Michael Jackson-ish.

Well, short post for today. More to come soon!

Japan Annoyance #1 and (Delight #1)

There have always been those that think grass is greener on the other side. I, being one of those people, came here hoping that this would be the land of sunshine and lollipops. (Val is watching me type and says lollipops are awesome. :) )The truth is, with anything good, there's always the bad. Don't get me wrong, so far my impressions of Japan have been overwhelmingly positive. I just want to shed some light on the little things that annoy me and/or Val. Let's just call them...cultural differences.

In the bathrooms, there's always different combinations (or permutations? I always sucked at finite) of the sink, soap and hand towel/dryer situation. The constant is that there's always a sink in some form. The variables are the paper towels/dryers and the soap.

Optimally, you want the soap with the dryer (for simplicity's sake). On a total side note (the delight!) is that the hand dryers here kick ass. They're called jet dryers, and rightly so! You know the dryers that blow the water off your car after a car wash? Well, imagine that!...but for your hands! (I'm getting way to excited about this) Gone are the minutes wasted while waiting for a sub par dryer to gently blow your hands dry with lukewarm or scalding air. This way it's super quick and well, it's an experience.

Back on topic...you'll be lucky if any bathroom you go to has both. Maybe 30% of the bathrooms I visit have this? MOST have soap (but not all). It's the dryers and towels that are elusive. It's like Bush looking for WMD's in Iraq. So much so, it's very common, nay, required that you carry around a hanky/towel to dry your hands.

So my question is, why? I don't really want to carry around a damp towel with me all damn day. The only other reason I can think of to support this non-towel theory is to save the environment, or to keep some cost in someone's budget down. If not towels, dryers should be mandatory. They're quick, energy efficient and seeing as how this country practically invented consumer electronics (I kid, I kid) they shouldn't cost too much to put in. Le sigh.

I can't believe I just wrote 4ish paragraphs about bathroom sanitation methods. :/

Cute overload!

For those of you just joining us, not to long ago, Val and I found the cutest darn kitten evar and took her into a animal rescue/shelter place called ARK.

We called them for an update to see how our Butters was doing and well, she's doing great! If you wanna see her adoption page, check it out here.

But look at this! If this doesn't say "ADOPT ME!" I don't know what does. Well, maybe you're heartless?



She's not as skinny as when we found her and now you can actually see her eyes which are a wicked blue colour. Anyhow, Val and I really want to adopt her but have doubts. So here's where you come in. We need help deciding! If you can, put some pros and or cons in the comments!

Not sure if I'm ready to be a responsible pet owner, but hey, I never thought I'd be living in Japan either. :)

Matane!

It's hard to explain...

Winter vacation has ended and the first thing I can think of is when my next day off is...I guess I am a lazy bastard. :)

Feeling adventurous today, I ventured into Den-Den Town in nearby Ebisucho. Den-Den Town? That sounds whack you say, but there's a perfectly good explanation. In Japanese, Denki means electricity and subsequently this place mainly sells electronics and everything related to it. Tokyo has a similar neighbourhood called Akihabara where they have the newest and most interesting stuff. Since Osaka is like Tokyo's little bro playing catch-up, it birthed Den-Den Town. If anything, it's nerd nirvana.


Two stops and a transfer later, I was wandering about Den-Den Town taking in the sights and everything that it had to offer. To give you a better idea of the area, it's one very long main street with covered sidewalks and a ton of stores lining it. There's much more in the alleys, but I wasn't feeling *that* adventurous.





The first store that caught my eye coming out of the station was this toy store caled Super Position. Yeah. Super Position. If there's one thing I've learned being here for 2 months now is that the English makes no frickin' sense. Val and I have a theory that they just randomly pick words they think sound cool and mash em together. Two other memorable names I've seen (for clothing stores no less) are Ice Plate and Cinderella Chance. Engrish at its finest. :D

Anyhow, in Japan theres a ton of these capsule toy machines like the crappy ones you find in the grocery store in Canada except most people here are collectors and these plastic things are of significantly better quality. The toys you get are a part of a set and in an effort to help facilitate the set completing, stores like Super Position are all over Den-Den Town. Inside the store is walls upon walls of little bags filled with these toys. The price per bag can range from $3-$50 depending on rarity I assume. Here's a better look...



Here's a capsule bank in front of the store.


The whole store looks just like this. (Apologies for the sideways-ness. No photo editing program yet. :( )


Here's a close-up! Weird stuff in them bags.

After that, I continued down the street which was game store after stereo store after computer store. The other kind of store of note that I saw was the old school used game stores. I've never seen anything like this in my life. Since space is at a premium on this little island nation, a lot of these stores are narrow and have multiple floors. Same as the toy stores, it was racks of old Japanese games and systems. Yesteryear's museum of sorts I suppose. Here's some pics I managed to sneak (normally stores don't like it when you take pictures for some odd reason). Seeing this retro game store made me wonder why we don't have anything like this in Canada. Ever since Val's NES died I've been looking for a replacementand If I lived in Japan it'd be super easy. Canada...not so much. :(


Holy. Crap.

They're all individually bagged and hung up. I have no idea how anyone finds anything around this place. It's like the library from hell.

Hope that wasn't too nerdy for y'all!

明けましておめでとう!!!

Happy new year guys!

Hope everyone's was barf free! Normally it's always a mad dash to make plans or figure out what the hell it is that you're going to be doing before the magical time of 12:00 rolls around. Some people are usually passed out by then. Others, dancing the night away. Us? We were sitting on a train. :) More specifically, sitting on the train to Sumiyoshi Taisho, one of the oldest shrines in Japan and one of the most popular new years spots.



To say that the place was crowded is a bit of an understatement. I don't think I've ever been in a crowd this large in my entire life. The crazy thing is how orderly everyone was. There were cops everywhere for crowd control, but everyone was just chillin' and having a good time with no pushing or a-holes trying to fuck things up for everybody else. There was even one dude with a huge dog who was getting tons of love from everyone in the crowd. Kinda reminded me of Porsche.

Here's another shot to give you an idea of the crowd...



When you think of shrine you think monks and chanting, but here the atmosphere was lively and if anything, reminded me of the CNE. In the central area, there was the one big shrine where everyone was chucking money to make wishes. Like a well without the water. Unfortuneately, no good pics of that :(

Entering the shrine compound, everyone washes their hands in the magical fountain to cleanse yourself so that you can start your new year with a clean slate. Despite the cold weather, everyone was dipping in. When in rome...



Another tradition is writing your wish and/or hopes on a piece of paper and tying it on one of the many pieces of straw rope.






After all that, we continued onto the midway where there was a ton of food, games to play and well, more food. There were stands lining the narrow walkways and periodically there were eating tents set up. Those japanese dudes in the back decided to pose, and we even had a group of Japanese dudettes take a polaroid of our group which was pretty cool. The amazing thing about a lot of this was the fact that everyone was in such a good mood and just having a blast. You see, traditionally, Japanese people are well known for not expressing themselves. They usually keep their feelings inside and rarely show "uniqueness" because of the expectation to conform.

Continuing on, here's a little culinary photo tour...




Noodles! Apparently you're supposed to have soba after midnight, but they were nowhere to be found. :(



Next up, Okonomiyaki, which is an Osaka specialty as it originated in the Kansai region. Think of it as a Japanese omelette. Contents may contain, onion, pork, octopus, shrimp, veggies, kimchi and/or cheese cooked on top of a pastry or egg. It's then folded over and covered with nori, fish flakes, mayo and a special okonomiyaki sauce that's like a sweeter and thicker worcestershire sauce.



Down the line we have Takoyaki which is another Osaka delicacy. It's really simple as it's just a fried ball of batter with a piece of octopus in the middle. Usually it's then topped with okonomiyaki sauce, green onion, mayo and fish flakes. Sometimes can be eaten as a meal, but it's mostly considered a snack food. There's takoyaki stands all over the place here and you can get 6 of em' for about two bucks.



Moving along we have good ol' fashioned meat skewers. Nothing says new years like greasy grilled meat! Coming over here I thought I was gonna go through a meat withdrawal, but it's hella plentiful and not always that expensive. Still need to find me some Kobe beef though...



Last stall of note was these dudes who were selling conchs. At least I think that's what they were...

There were also some stands selling footlong hotdogs with no buns, candied fruit, and one stand even had a chocolate fountain. There's just something awesome about seeing a fountain...of chocolate. Coke would also be acceptable.




Food aside, there were also a bunch of games like ring toss and another one where you pay to get one ticket and your prize depends on the number on the ticket. The other weird one we saw was the fish catching game. You get a net made of paper and you try to catch as many as you can before the paper breaks. What the prize is, I have no idea, but it seemed cool nonetheless.

Well, that was my new year, and I gotta say, it's been one of the best. It also ranks first as the most Japanese thing I've done here, so hopefully that's a sign of things to come. :)

Wishing you all the best in 2007!