I feel my whole life has been spent waiting. Waiting and watching. Observing what's been going on, not especially particularly interested in it - just watching to see how it will all turn out. Ever since I can remember, I've been waiting and watching, I can't tell you for what exactly, but I feel like the time has come to stop. Now, I must do, I must become, in the classical (or non-classical, if such is your interpretation) sense (in the most classical of senses). And thus I finally greet the world as it is with a resounding hello.
I may have stopped waiting for now, but I will always be watching.
What's really good? You haven't seen anything yet, son.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Whale Bacon
I just saw an ad on japanese television for "whale bacon" with some people chattering over pictures of people dipping what looks to be bacon jello into soy sauce about how long it's been since they've had whale bacon. You can get 800 grams of whale bacon for the approximate equivalent of $65.00. Sweet.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Meishi - aka name cards
You'd know them as business cards, and handing them around is sort of a tradition (between businesspeople/salarymen and otherwise), and I brought some of mine along on the trip to hand out, and I've got some pretty good ones in return. Here are some of my favorites, numbered for reference.
1.) Bar ants - nice ass bar in fukuoka (I'll probably talk about that in a later post about the golden week holiday), but they didn't have a table charge (a common practice in japan, like a cover charge, but for a bar), and they had about the best damn garlic bread in the whole country. Also, they were showing this crazy ass show called the world of golden eggs, this sort of low-budget japanese animation show, but the crappiness just adds to the hilarity. Seriously. It's pretty funny (and for some reason all the shows have english subtitles which are pretty much way off what the people are actually saying, but capture the feel of the moment) - also hard to explain if you haven't seen it. So yeah. Oh, this place had a really awesome bathroom too - went all old-school style with a water closet (with a pull-cord on the toilet), and really nice fixtures - I have a video of me all drunk getting way too worked up about the awesomeness of the bathroom, so I'll omit it for now.
2.) Jamp. A sick live-karaoke bar in Fukuoka, steep charge though - 20 bucks. Worth it, however, once we figured out what the place was about - basically you pick the song you want to sing, and the bartender/owner and his band get up on stage with you and play the music while you sing the lyrics. Frankly, they're rather good and justify the price (also seeing some drunk-ass japanese people get up there and do their thing). I sang sort of a punk version of sgt. pepper's lonely hearts club band, which the band thought was 'interesting'. We struck up a friendly conversation with the owner afterwards and we gave us this cd he cut a long time ago. It sucked. Ah well.
3.) Drunk at one of my favorite bars in kyoto one night (kakitani, deserves a post all its own), met a couple of young salarymen and we talked about america and japan a bit and agreed with each other a lot since we were plastered. Anyway we exchanged business cards and this was his. I forgot what he did.
4.) Ah, another denizen of this bar - Kazuhiko Matsushita - we met these guys on the second night of being in kyoto when we stumbled upon the place. He's a fashion importer from italy and was dressed to the nines and tens. Hilarious dude, looked like he was doing quite well for himself.
I always see him in there with some gorgeous dame or another, even though he's married and has a daughter (he showed us her picture and she was fiiiiine), whatever floats his sushi boat I guess.
5.) Kakitani - favorite bar in kyoto (more on this later). Card includes a map, which is nice, since the place is nearly impossible to find.
6.) Friend of the other young salaryman from number 3, also drunk, spoke good english as well. Works for wacoal, who are, among other things, one of the largest bra manufacturers in japan. Way to go man.
7.) Ah, the other Matsushita , he was with his brother the first time we went to Kakitani, works for one of the top three shipping companies in japan - SG Advance - I think my first host father may have worked for them. Anyway this guy was a big mucky-muck of some sort (like section chief for all of western japan or something) and got us wasted. Thanks.
8.) The ryokan (japanese-style inn) we stayed at in Beppu, land of steam vents - seriously, everywhere you went there were these jets of sulphuric vapor erupting from pipes all over the place in this town, supplying all the onsen (hot spring baths) with naturally heated mineral water. Made the place smell like shit though). Ill place - they had three separate baths, two outdoor, one indoor, we went to the old-style outdoor one which was one of the most relaxing experiences of my life. The place was really quiet and laid-back, and since it was the holidays, everyone had skipped town for places like tokyo disneyland and shit, so we got the place pretty much to ourselves. After the bath, we sat in our room and watched horrible japanese makeover shows. Hilarious.
9.) Don't really remember this one. I think I got this one from a drunkish salaryman at the smoking section of the hotel where Doshisha University had its welcome dinner for foreign students. I was sitting and chilling and all of a sudden like ten drunk, loud ass dudes in suits stumble out of this other room and all start smoking simultaneously. I ask them what's up, they say some sort of corporate party, dude's like 'why you here whitey' and I tell them I'm here for this thing, but all the other nerdy ass foreigners (including some pasty-ass fat german girls in kimonos who looked like cosplayers; stayed away from them) were fucking annoying, so i was outside smoking with the cool kids (them). The dude laughed and told his friends, who also laughed. So I guess the way to get cred with old-school japanese businessmen is to talk shit about foreigners. I could get used to this.
10.) Some dude from the AA (alkies anonymous) in Kagoshima, which is the southernmost city in Kyushu (which is the southernmost island in japan). Met him in a capsule hotel when he sort of just came up to us and invited us to breakfast (this capsule hotel was fucking nice, had it's own restaurant and a really sick black-slate public bath on the top two floors with magnificent views of Fukuoka and the surrounding mountains). I guess this dude is a bit irritating, but he used to be an alcoholic and now it just looks like he smokes like a chimney (had like three or four packs of cigarettes out in front of him at the restaurant) and talks your fucking ear off. He still calls me sometimes about some bullshit or another. Nice guy though. Likes to rescue homeless people.
11. & 12.) Nishida-san, former chief editor of National Geographic's japan bureau or something. Always drunk because I always see him at Kakitani (another reason my I dig the place so much, always some sick-ass people hanging out in there). Classic japanese businessman. Now he runs some print advertising company that makes flashy pamphlets and shit. Cool dude though really, bought me a few drinks in the day.
1.) Bar ants - nice ass bar in fukuoka (I'll probably talk about that in a later post about the golden week holiday), but they didn't have a table charge (a common practice in japan, like a cover charge, but for a bar), and they had about the best damn garlic bread in the whole country. Also, they were showing this crazy ass show called the world of golden eggs, this sort of low-budget japanese animation show, but the crappiness just adds to the hilarity. Seriously. It's pretty funny (and for some reason all the shows have english subtitles which are pretty much way off what the people are actually saying, but capture the feel of the moment) - also hard to explain if you haven't seen it. So yeah. Oh, this place had a really awesome bathroom too - went all old-school style with a water closet (with a pull-cord on the toilet), and really nice fixtures - I have a video of me all drunk getting way too worked up about the awesomeness of the bathroom, so I'll omit it for now.
2.) Jamp. A sick live-karaoke bar in Fukuoka, steep charge though - 20 bucks. Worth it, however, once we figured out what the place was about - basically you pick the song you want to sing, and the bartender/owner and his band get up on stage with you and play the music while you sing the lyrics. Frankly, they're rather good and justify the price (also seeing some drunk-ass japanese people get up there and do their thing). I sang sort of a punk version of sgt. pepper's lonely hearts club band, which the band thought was 'interesting'. We struck up a friendly conversation with the owner afterwards and we gave us this cd he cut a long time ago. It sucked. Ah well.
3.) Drunk at one of my favorite bars in kyoto one night (kakitani, deserves a post all its own), met a couple of young salarymen and we talked about america and japan a bit and agreed with each other a lot since we were plastered. Anyway we exchanged business cards and this was his. I forgot what he did.
4.) Ah, another denizen of this bar - Kazuhiko Matsushita - we met these guys on the second night of being in kyoto when we stumbled upon the place. He's a fashion importer from italy and was dressed to the nines and tens. Hilarious dude, looked like he was doing quite well for himself.
I always see him in there with some gorgeous dame or another, even though he's married and has a daughter (he showed us her picture and she was fiiiiine), whatever floats his sushi boat I guess.
5.) Kakitani - favorite bar in kyoto (more on this later). Card includes a map, which is nice, since the place is nearly impossible to find.
6.) Friend of the other young salaryman from number 3, also drunk, spoke good english as well. Works for wacoal, who are, among other things, one of the largest bra manufacturers in japan. Way to go man.
7.) Ah, the other Matsushita , he was with his brother the first time we went to Kakitani, works for one of the top three shipping companies in japan - SG Advance - I think my first host father may have worked for them. Anyway this guy was a big mucky-muck of some sort (like section chief for all of western japan or something) and got us wasted. Thanks.
8.) The ryokan (japanese-style inn) we stayed at in Beppu, land of steam vents - seriously, everywhere you went there were these jets of sulphuric vapor erupting from pipes all over the place in this town, supplying all the onsen (hot spring baths) with naturally heated mineral water. Made the place smell like shit though). Ill place - they had three separate baths, two outdoor, one indoor, we went to the old-style outdoor one which was one of the most relaxing experiences of my life. The place was really quiet and laid-back, and since it was the holidays, everyone had skipped town for places like tokyo disneyland and shit, so we got the place pretty much to ourselves. After the bath, we sat in our room and watched horrible japanese makeover shows. Hilarious.
9.) Don't really remember this one. I think I got this one from a drunkish salaryman at the smoking section of the hotel where Doshisha University had its welcome dinner for foreign students. I was sitting and chilling and all of a sudden like ten drunk, loud ass dudes in suits stumble out of this other room and all start smoking simultaneously. I ask them what's up, they say some sort of corporate party, dude's like 'why you here whitey' and I tell them I'm here for this thing, but all the other nerdy ass foreigners (including some pasty-ass fat german girls in kimonos who looked like cosplayers; stayed away from them) were fucking annoying, so i was outside smoking with the cool kids (them). The dude laughed and told his friends, who also laughed. So I guess the way to get cred with old-school japanese businessmen is to talk shit about foreigners. I could get used to this.
10.) Some dude from the AA (alkies anonymous) in Kagoshima, which is the southernmost city in Kyushu (which is the southernmost island in japan). Met him in a capsule hotel when he sort of just came up to us and invited us to breakfast (this capsule hotel was fucking nice, had it's own restaurant and a really sick black-slate public bath on the top two floors with magnificent views of Fukuoka and the surrounding mountains). I guess this dude is a bit irritating, but he used to be an alcoholic and now it just looks like he smokes like a chimney (had like three or four packs of cigarettes out in front of him at the restaurant) and talks your fucking ear off. He still calls me sometimes about some bullshit or another. Nice guy though. Likes to rescue homeless people.
11. & 12.) Nishida-san, former chief editor of National Geographic's japan bureau or something. Always drunk because I always see him at Kakitani (another reason my I dig the place so much, always some sick-ass people hanging out in there). Classic japanese businessman. Now he runs some print advertising company that makes flashy pamphlets and shit. Cool dude though really, bought me a few drinks in the day.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
The first
Hello and welcome. In this space we will explore what's really good (as in, what's really good, son?). Expect no chronological order, or any semblance of organization. Expect pictures, anecdotes, observations, and the occasional video. This is for thinking and recording things that happen in general.
Perhaps a bit of an introduction is in order. You probably already know me, and probably already know I'm in Japan. If you don't, well there it is. You may think that this is well overdue, and you may be right. An explanation will follow in a later post, so don't worry y'selves too much about that.
I'm not going to say too much now, except that I don't have a digital camera - I have a cell phone which provides this functionality. I will say this, however: the cell phones in america ain't got shit on these amazing japanese machines (in general, this is true). So, you can also expect a bunch of blurry photos and low-quality videos (consider this an experiment). I do however have my old Canon Elan seven film camera, so I'll scan in some good ones for your perusal and subsequent enjoyment (or derision, if you prefer).
There is much to do, so I'll stop here, but as I've said (and would say again) stay the fuck tuned. This is a ridiculous land.
Blucka blucka.
Perhaps a bit of an introduction is in order. You probably already know me, and probably already know I'm in Japan. If you don't, well there it is. You may think that this is well overdue, and you may be right. An explanation will follow in a later post, so don't worry y'selves too much about that.
I'm not going to say too much now, except that I don't have a digital camera - I have a cell phone which provides this functionality. I will say this, however: the cell phones in america ain't got shit on these amazing japanese machines (in general, this is true). So, you can also expect a bunch of blurry photos and low-quality videos (consider this an experiment). I do however have my old Canon Elan seven film camera, so I'll scan in some good ones for your perusal and subsequent enjoyment (or derision, if you prefer).
There is much to do, so I'll stop here, but as I've said (and would say again) stay the fuck tuned. This is a ridiculous land.
Blucka blucka.
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