Ummmmm... yeah.

So, I haven't been posting much lately, despite my promises to deliver on some original thoughts and comments about my time here. Plus, maybe some more pics from my week in Osaka and my views on the National Science Museum in Tokyo's Ueno Park, which I visited this past weekend. This weekend, I hope to make good on that. But not tonight. Tonight's crazy busy. Sorry. This weekend.



Well, maybe some weird stuff right now to tide you over.

This is what all the sakura blossoms looked like on the baseball field of Kanashima when all the surrounding trees were shedding their petals in the rain, with very little wind to disturb it.

Some blank DVDs I saw at the tech store lately. Love the brand name.

My neighbor's car beside mine. Don't know what the make is, but it's an Alfa. Now, a quick snip in MS Paint, and it becomes:

Now that's what I call a green machine. The Japanese take this hybrid stuff seriously.

Ja, ato de.

Re: Virginia Tech

Hey everyone, I just wanted to express my sorrow for what happened at Virginia Tech. Attending UF, it was just something I took for granted that my safety was assured. Hearing about this maniac just attacking engineering students and faculty, I thought about that happening at the MEB and the Marston Science Library at UF, and it just couldn't click. I tend to think of a college campus as a safe haven for ideas and young adults looking for their way. Seeing someone destroy that is pretty rough.

On the other hand, though, South Koreans should have nothing to fear. Nor should they be ashamed. This was obviously an isolated case, and every country has its share of nutcases. I'm suspicious of loner sociopaths, not South Koreans.

Them's my two cents.

Osaka Highlights

Okay guys, here's brief highlights from the Osaka trip - this doesn't really do the trip justice, but if I tried to do that, I would be here all night. So here goes.

Day 1 - wandering

To get to Osaka this time, we took advantage of the "Juu-hachi kippu," which is a deal offered by Japan Rail every so often to encourage young people on a budget to see the country. Basically, it gives you five unlimited days of use for all JR surface trains, and that doesn't include the bullet train. So going that way, it was very cheap, but very tiring. It took us 14 hours each way, with a lot of stops. Not terribly fun times, and we were pretty exhausted our first night there. But full day 1 was cool - we just wandered the city from south to north, hitting some of the highlights. One of the big ones was Dotonbori, which was a big shopping/nightlife district very near our hotel.

The main street.

We also hit the Umeda Sky building, which I hit last time I was in Osaka, and is always a hit. I saw it during the day this time, which I didn't last time.

Brigg got exposed to nuclear waste and grew until his torso took up the entire atrium of the building. Either that or I played silly buggers with the camera angle. I can't quite remember.

Here's something I couldn't see last time - in the middle of the photo is the view of Osaka castle from the Umeda Sky building. It was a little hazy that day, but it was still fairly spectacular.

In the evening of day 1, we found this great Mexican restraunt near Dotonbori, and met one of the waitresses - a drummer in a local band, whose English was passable. Too bad she was married, I might still be in Osaka now if she wasn't. So she invited us to a show on day 3, which was pretty rockin. We also went to a live show on our own on the evening of day 1, and another on day 5. We spent a fair amount of the time this trip checking out the local rock music scene of Osaka, which was a lot of fun.

Day 2 - Osaka Castle, Science Museum

We got up early and hit it hard on day 2, and were happy we did. Osaka castle was spectacular. We were there during the Sakura season, which just set everything off.

Here's the castle. There's a big museum inside, multi-level, that explains a lot about the castle and Ieyasu Tokugawa, the first shogun of the Edo period. This was his headquarters, won from the Toyotomi family. It also explains how the castle fell during the summer war. Here's a link to a site about the castle, reading material if you're bored.

http://www.tracyanddale.50megs.com/Japan/html%20files/osakac.html

I tried to find a site that detailed the screen that was painted to depict the fall of Osaka castle, it's really stunning, but I came up empty-handed. Feel free to search yourself, if you find it it'll be worth the effort.

The top floor of the castle is an observation deck. I'm a sucker for high places.

Crud, something just came up and I have to cut this short. I'll try to pick it up again on Thursday, but it may have to wait until the weekend. I'll do my best! Take care, everyone.

Catch-up

Hey again everyone! O-hisashiburi desu ne? (It's been a while, ain't it?) I'm back from Osaka, I've had a nice, restful couple of days, and I'm getting ready to hit it hard for school again tomorrow. I'm going to be rapid-fire posting for a few day, I think, rather than try to fit everything into one post. These posts are intended to just be a brief recap of some of my adventures over the last couple of weeks, but mainly I want to get out some thoughts that I've had about Japan in general. You can see photos of Japan any-old-where, just check out some tourist sites, but the reason you come to my blog is to get my take on Japan. So I'm gonna provide just that.

But first, the recap, with highlights. Once again, forgive my lack of camera flash functionality.

Saturday the 24th - Brigg and I hit the Tokyo International Anime Fair at the Tokyo Big Sight convention center. It's the biggest convention in the world, I couldn't pass up the opportunity. Yes, this makes me a colossal nerd, but that shouldn't be any real news to those of you who know me. It was everything I thought it would be.

An imposing venue



Booths galore






Fighting robots and pretty girls






Wall to wall collectables








And a few oddities. This is not made up, or photoshopped in any way. This is a poster for an upcoming anime series. Samuel L. Jackson provides the voice for the main character - AFRO SAMURAI. He's a hardass. Brigg and I laughed for five minutes straight.






Sunday the 25th - checking out sakura (cherry blossoms) in Ueno, and also seeing the Ueno Park Zoo. The sakura was not at its peak, and it was raining on and off, so it wasn't the BEST time to check out the sights, but we weren't about to let that discourage us.



Here is Minako, a friend I went with. Also some of the flock of people gathered around any tree that was decently in bloom.

The sakura itself. I believe that early in the season, the paler blossoms come out, and the more bright pink blossoms are a bit later on. Maybe this week, in fact.

In Ueno park zoo - mostly, the animals look as animals tend to do. This was noteworthy, though - the classic Japanese crane. Its head is about chest height on me.

This hornbill was also noteworthy. Most of the animals in the park were pretty shy and retiring, hard to get a photo of, but this guy was perched right up front, in full grandeur, staring people down. He's all like: "Be sure to get my good side."


Well, I'll call that a post, but I will definitely give a short recap of my Osaka trip in the next day or two. Watch this space.