Kanashima JHS Sports, Various

Hey again y'all! This episode of "Inspector Gaijin," we'll take a look at the sports teams of Kanashima Junior High School. Most kids at school are a member of some after-school activity or other, more often than not some kind of sport. Well, I guess a fair number of them are on the table tennis team, if you want to call that a "sport." On a usual day, they play sports from 4:20 to about 6:20, and on Saturdays they have games with other local junior high schools. Yes, the kids play for more than 2 hours a day, 5 days a week, and on Saturdays the practices last from morning until about 4:00. About 7 hours. They get pretty good with all this practice. This is ON TOP OF the really rough quantity of homework that they get. Man, Japanese people work their kids hard.

So, recently I had a chance to see the girl's volleyball team and the boy's baseball team play. Both teams did pretty well, the baseball team won both games I saw them play. Here's some photos, and nicknames I thought of for some of the kids. They're corny, but the pursuit entertained me for 15 minutes or so, so it was well worth it.

"Tank" Tanaka - Definitely Kanashima's BMOC

"Iggie" Igarashi

"Outta Here" Outa

"Slugger" Sugumoto

"Go-To Guy" Gotou

"Murderer" Miura

Like I say, these kids were very professional, since they'd been playing for so long every day. They were playing against Showa JHS, and they creamed those guys. Our fielders showed some real skill out there, and Tanaka and Gotou were both very cool on the mound, they got out of some tight situations. It was a fun couple of games to watch.

The lineup before and after the games - the teams bow to each other and the ref.

Final score of the second game: Kanashima 7, Showa 1. It's hard to argue with 4 runs in an inning.

So, that was fun. Also, I recently had a chance to see a game of the girl's volleyball team. Here's a pic.

Again, both teams were amazingly proficient. Kanashima was about evenly matched that time.

Other things going on lately: There was a big 'sayonara' get-together of all the JETs in Gunma, at a beer garden in Takasaki. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, this is just a place on the roof of a building where you pay about $25 at the start of the evening, and it's all you can eat and all the beer and soda you can drink from 5:00 to 9:00. This is another concept I think would do well in America. Or at least, if it didn't go bankrupt. Here's some pics.

There was live music as well. Good times were had by all.

There was another, more local BBQ as well, at a friend of mine's house. Japanese-style BBQ is a different mentality than America-style, but still filling, and still tasty. Pics:

Matt's the grill-master there. The girls are shy.

Later on, we had fireworks, to celebrate American independence day. Or just to celebrate the fact that they had fireworks at the store. All the fireworks you can actually shoot yourselves in Japan are pretty tiny. We essentially just had sparklers. Leah and Matt posed for 'dragon' shots.

Matt actually burned a hole in his shirt for this one. ^_^

So, it's Summertime in Gunma, which means rain and overcast skies (I haven't seen the sun in over a week, I swear), but it also means lots of flowers. There are some nice ones called 'ajisai' that are very common, and characteristic of the season. Some pics:

There are also these odd-shaped flowers I call UFO's because I don't know their real name, but they look nice. These are some in my neighbor's yard.

They have quite a few.

Some blue ones, too.

These are views in a little park right next to Kanashima JHS.

Another cool thing that happened recently was Tanabata. It's a traditional holiday in Japan. Here's the wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanabata

As usual, it's a pretty thorough run-down. Long story short, Tanabata is a festival that celebrates the two stars Vega and Altair, and their embodiments as the Weaver, Orihime, and the Sheperd, Hikoboshi. It's a legend that the two lovers are seperated in heaven by the Milky Way (River of Heaven), and can only meet once a year on July 7. On that day, people decorate bamboo stalks with paper streamers and wishes for the two lovers and for themselves. There was a little celebration at Toyoaki Elementary.

The crowd. The students shared their wishes, and sang the traditional song.

The decorated bamboo.

We also got this little flavored ice treat at lunchtime.

Well, that was about 4 posts in one, so you can forgive me my almost 3 week absence, right? Also, I will be making a trip to Mt. Fuji this weekend with a friend of mine, which is why this blog was kinda hastily done. I didn't have time this week, and next blog will hopefully be my experiences there. So, while this was unpolished, next time I might be able to show pics of a Fuji sunrise.

(It's like a tequila sunrise, except instead of a shot of tequila, there's 2 billion tons of rock.)

P.S. I was saddened to hear of the passing of TV's "Mister Wizard." That was an important figure from my childhood, and undoubtedly helped me find my interest in Science, such as it is. May he rest in peace, and may the many "Little Timmies" he inadvertently blew up never track him down in the afterlife.

Cute Stuff

Hey all! New happenings of the past week - last Wednesday, I had my last teaching class at the elementary schoolers, and one class of third graders all gave me thank-you notes. I thought this would be an excellent opportunity to discuss what big business "cute" is in Japan.

To begin with, there's the stationary. Kids buy stationery and school supplies with cute as the only factor considered in their purchasing decision. I guess it's the same in America, but it's just all that much more prolific over here. I just happen to have some prime examples of this.

Love Bambini - Small fawn was born!

Happy elephant - soursour brand stationery

Marie from the Aristocats and Bunny from Bambi are pretty big figures

Happy food - a pretty common theme. Personally, if I saw my ice cream cone smiling at me, I'd be pretty weirded out.

Says it all, really.

Awesome Engrish - "CHEERFUL DAYS - The first step toward happiness. Footloose and fancy free. Make your daily life pleasant! - I am full of play mind! A wonderful presentiment. I like what is like you. - I feel comfortable with my heart exhilirated."

Kid drawings of Jeff-sensei (I just kinda get all happy when they call me Jeff-sensei)

A game we'd play sometimes where I'd swing a stuffed soccer ball on a string, and call out "high" or "low" and they'd have to jump or duck, and if it hit them they'd be out. From the picture, apparently I've totally KO'd two small children with that thing.

Me towering over the crowd

Me on the playground - I used to play with them during recess. It was great. Japanese tag games are fun, and dodgeball is slightly different but more interesting. The Incan temple with a clock at the top is supposed to be the school, I think.

The coup de grace - one of the kids slipped me a tiny, tiny gum eraser, with a picture of a hamster, with a peach for a head, holding a small, smiling green ball. Overkill, in my opinion. Exasperated sigh.

I have a lot more of that stuff, with origami cranes and paper airplanes and everything. Third graders are really nice. ^_^

Anyway, other cute stuff. Student drawings of themselves is often fun to see - it's usually anime style, with either huge eyes and spike hair or chubby faces, button noses and the like. Capsule machines are VERY common over here, you can get all kinds of small accessories, pins, and danglies for about 100 yen each, in all your favorite popular themes of the moment. Danglies are huge, I swear there's something hard-wired into the Japanese female brain. If it's got a loop, it'll have a danglie attatched within 8 hours. Yes, I have one on my cell phone too.

I don't have a picture of this, and it's a shame, but the most ingenious danglies I've ever seen in Japan was Winnie the Pooh characters... dressed up... as OTHER Winnie the Pooh characters. For example, they had the base characters, and they were all basically the same shape - Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore, Tigger - and they also had costumes of those four characters that would slip over the base characters. They were interchangeable, too. It looked like a costume party where everyone dressed up as their friends. Of course, you could make them look like they were wearing a costume of themselves, too. Darn cute stuff. Hmm, now that I think about it, a "dress up as your friends" or "dress up as yourself" theme might be pretty fun for Halloween some year...

So, that's cute stuff. Serious business.

Last week, I also went to a volleyball match at Kanashima-chu, and saw the Taiko show as promised. I will update with images of those soon. For now, I'm'a call it a night. Take care!

Castlepalooza

Okay guys, this is a nothing post, but I wanted to give this its own post so you didn't miss it. If you have Quicktime, you're in for a treat. If you don't, download it for pity's sake. This is pretty nifty.

http://castle.ad-g.tv/osaka/egindex.htm

You're looking for the Quicktime VR tour. Most of these views are just 360 panoramic ('just?') but on some of them you can look all the way up to the sky and all the way down to the ground. It's like you are actually there, except even better because your pesky feet don't get in the way of your view of the ground. Levitating eyeballs are us. These views are just for Osaka-jou, too. Check out the "Castle Select" feature at the top right. Woot. All the Japanese castle you've ever wanted and then some.

RHCP Concert / Things I would bring to America

Hey guys! I thought I'd get off my butt and give you a quick update on what I've been up to. First and foremost, GO ATLANTIS!!!! Mad props to all my homies in the ground crew. It looked so pretty, and I was so glad to be able to see it over here. You couldn't see the entire launch on the news, and it was slightly spoiled by the Japanese announcer speaking over the launch announcement "And LIFTOFF of the space shuttle Atlantis, bringing additional power to the science laboratories of tomorrow" or whatever was said. I caught the whole thing on spaceflightnow.com, though, and it was glorious. Way to go.

So, on Tuesday of last week, I attended my first big-venue concert ever, and it was a good one. The Red Hot Chili Peppers are on a global tour to promote their songs from the Stadium Arcadium album, and their VERY FIRST STOP was the Tokyo Dome on June 5. I was there. So were two of my friends. So were many, many other people.

This was my view of the stage before the show. I was actually on the floor, pretty impressive considering that I waited until 2 weeks before the show to buy my ticket. The ticket cost about $90, worth every yen. I don't think the ticket was supposed to be a particularly good one - I was near the back of the mob of people on the ground, and we were all standing up. However, a bunch of people in front of you only poses a problem if they are the same height as you. This was decidedly not the case. So, it was a pretty good seat. ^_^

This is the outside of the Tokyo Dome, where the concert was. This is really the premiere concert venue in Tokyo, and therefore pretty much all of Japan. It is home to the baseball team with the largest following in the entire J-league, the Yomiura Giants, and baseball is pretty much the national pastime (pasttime? pass-time? whatever) of Japan, so it's a pretty big place. The concert was sold out. Many people were there.


This is Trent and his girlfriend Yuri, who I went with. We did not buy our tickets at the same time, so while we drove to the concert together, we had to split up. I sat alone, but it was cool because I kind of struck up conversations with the people sitting on either side of me. They were pretty fun. When they played Californication, the guy on my left TOTALLY called what song they were going to play ten seconds before they started. Either he's a good guesser, or he's been to concerts of theirs before and they always do a subdued guitar duet improv bit before Californication. Or he's psychic, I guess that's a third possibility.


Me and Trent. One thing about Trent is that he can never just smile for a photo, he always has to pose and ham it up. He was not actually wearing his cap sideways the whole evening, thank goodness. He's a great guy, though.


This is a photo I took when the band first took the stage. It's kind of an artistic tribute to the degree to which my camera sucks. The blur on the left is Flea Balzary, the bass player, the center is Chad Smith at his drum set, and the one on the right is John Frusciante, lead guitar. Anthony Kiedis, the singer, had not actually taken the stage at this point. The reason I did not take a photo when he took the stage was that I didn't see ANYONE else with a camera out - I thought it might be a faux pas at a concert. However, Trent and Yuri were in the stands, and they said they could see about 300 cameras out at any one time. If I had known that, I wouldn't have been as embarrassed. Oh, well.


This gives you some idea of what the concert looked like in full swing. The quality is not actually my camera's fault this time - it's actually a photo of a screen still of a low quality video that I took with my cruddy camera. Thus, no excuses. Anyway, they had four screens that they zoomed in on the four members of the band with, and a giant lightboard behind it that flashed images in all different colors. It was really cool. Another thing was that the speaker and light rigs were hung from the ceiling on platforms that looked kind of like UFO's, and they all lit up in all different colors at the last encore. It kept with the "interplanetary" theme of the album nicely.
The concert itself was amazing. The band was on stage for about an hour and 45 minutes, and I heard from the news that they played 17 songs, but I lost count. I wonder if that figure takes the solos and improv bits into account - probably not. I've never seen guitar work like John Frusciante's before, it was amazing. The guy's a real virtuoso. I just checked it out, and he made #18 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 greatest guitar players of all time. It's well deserved, in my opinion. Both in the hard, distorted, heavy pieces and in the soft, subdued, mellow pieces, the entire band was great. The solos and improvization was as great as the actual songs, too, in my opinion. Chad Smith did a 5 minute drum solo at one point that blew everyone away. Toward the end of the concert, the bass player came out and did a trumpet solo, that was a little surprising. They played all their biggies - some of the notables were "By the Way," "Scar Tissue," "White as Snow," "Charlie," "Stadium Arcadium," "Californication," and "Otherside." They didn't do "Road Trippin'" or "The Zephyr Song" or several others that I missed, but they've just got too many great songs to hit them all I guess. The encores were "Under the Bridge" and "Give it Away," and everyone went nuts for those. Everyone was kind of jumping around and dancing, but the crowd was slightly more subdued than I think it would be in America. This is Japan, I guess a few more reservations are to be expected. I was certainly doing my share of jumping around - I bought a poster before the show, and I had to stick it under my seat during the show so that stuck out between my legs. By the end of the concert, the end that protruded was smashed flat from multiple stompings. I may display the poster with the wrinkles intact, as a reminder of how much I enjoyed the show. I was a bit surprised how many of the songs the whole crowd went nuts for - I guess RHCP is really popular in Japan. There were even a few songs that I didn't even know, that most of the crowd cheered for. Huh. In "Under the Bridge," of course everyone brought out their lighters, but this is Japan, so the people without lighters brought out their cell phones. The result was a really cool multicolored effect when you looked around the darkened stadium, and I got a video of it on my cell phone. All in all, the concert was very memorable.

So, I got a shirt at the concert, and it's real evidence that this concert was the first on the tour.


I made the suggestion to Trent and Yuri that since we made the first show, we should try to make the rest of them, too. Just follow them around the world. They laughed. At that point, I was pseudo-serious. ^_^ It would have been awesome to catch the show in Osaka.






Random thought: In this bloody country they call a cold-cut a hamburger, a hamburger a steak, and steaks are nonexistent.





So, lately I've been thinking about everyday things that are cool in Japan that it would not be too difficult to bring home to America if people would come to their senses. I've compiled the following list. This is not everything, but it's a pretty good cross-section. It's not in any particular order.

1) Onsen
Japanese public baths are great. Yes, everyone is naked, but no one feels particularly self-conscious because, hey, EVERYONE's naked. You take a shower first thing, and then you just take as much time as you like lying in giant hot pools, outdoor hot tubs, pools contoured to fit your reclining body, saunas, cold baths, the works. It's a pretty good way to spend a cold afternoon, or heck a warm afternoon too. Good times.

2) Warmlet

Dial-controlled heated toilet seat. I've got one in my apartment. You only have to spend about 2 weeks with one before it becomes indispensible. Great every day, fantastic on cold days. Simple, economical, wonderful.

3) Curry/Indian restaurants
Curry is really big in Japan, and I have to admit it's grown on me. Really good Indian food restaurants are pretty common around here. Good lamb curry with good hot nan bread is something that I'm going to miss when I go home. Even the school lunch curry is a favorite of mine. From the supermarket, I frequently get packs of curry that you heat up and serve with rice. Not restraunt-quality, but not bad. Better if you sautee some pork, green pepper, and onion, and mix it in.


4) Kaiten-zushi
Big family sushi restaurants built around giant conveyor belts. The conveyor belts have sushi on them, and everything's about the same price. You just reach out and take whatever looks good. You can also order specific things directly from the kitchen if you don't see what you want. At the end of the meal, they just come and count how many empty plates you've piled up, and multiply that by 100 yen to get your bill. It's great.

5) Rice cookers

This is my rice cooker, and it sees pretty frequent use. You just put uncooked rice and water in that removable metal bowl, close the lid, and push a button. 15 to 20 minutes later, you get perfect rice. You don't need to program how long to cook it, it monitors it for you. You don't need to pour any water off afterward, it steams any excess water off. It's just a bowl full of great rice. Only thing is, they're pretty expensive. I didn't buy mine, but I guess it would go for about 75 dollars. I've seen them for as much as 400 dollars. I don't know what you'd put in a rice cooker to make it worth 400 dollars - for that price, it'd better inject the rice with antidepressants or something.

6) Kotatsu

This is a photo of my computer set-up. The table it's on is called a kotatsu. There is an electric space-heater screwed to the underside of the table, and when you stick your legs under the blanket, it's all warm. It's great in winter. It's a staple of life to Japanese families - in winter, the kotatsu is the center of the home. Everyone will sit at the kotatsu to eat, watch TV, converse, and what have you.

7) CD rentals
In Japanese rental stores, in addition to being able to rent DVD's and video games, you can rent CD's. They're cheaper than DVD's, and you usually rent them for a week at a time. That's a great idea in my opinion, it lets you hear good music for a fraction of the cost. Only problem is, there's nothing to prevent people from ripping the music to their computer. Those dirty, dirty software pirates.

(embarrassed hypocritical silence)

8) Nashi
Japanese pears are great. You can only get them in summer, but it's worth the wait. The texture is somewhere between an apple and a pear, and they're sweet and juicy and have a flavor that's not quite like anything I've ever tasted. Kind of apple-y, kind of pear-ish, kind of melon-y. Good stuff. I've never seen one in America.

9) Meiji Pizza / Frozen Gyoza

Meiji frozen pizza is really good. The best frozen pizza in America is Stouffer's french bread, and this is not as filling as that, but it tastes better if you prepare it right. Gyoza is the fried dumplings you can get at some chinese places, and Ajinomoto does a mean frozen version.

10) Drink bar
At most family restaurants, you can get drink bar. It's a big bar with all different kind of drinks, including hot coffee, iced coffee, all kinds of flavored teas, sodas, hot cocoa, frozen beverages, etc. You can go up as many times as you like, and get whatever drinks you like. In a country where drinks are small and refills are usually not free, this is like heaven to me.

11) Flavored Kit-Kat

Every two months or so, Kit-Kat will come out with a new seasonal flavor, in addition to the typical chocolate. It's something extra to look forward to. I've been hoarding them to share with my family when they come. We're gonna have a Kit-Kat party, it'll be great. Clockwise from top, they are a bag of lemon fun-size bars, green tea, peach & sakura, bitter baking chocolate, brandy & orange, and dark chocolate. I missed white chocolate, it went away before I realized it was special, and that saddens me.

Well, I've been blogging for about 3.5 hours, so I'll call that a post. Happy father's day, Dad! Take care, everyone.

Komochi-Matsuri with Araki-sensei

Greetings all. You may have noticed that I took a fairly extended sabbatical from posting. This was due to a dramatic upswing in my life's activities due to joining a gym and starting dating again. Thanks to all who took notice. (meh meh meh, we want more content, wah wah waaah) As a result, until further notice blog posts will not be on any set schedule, but rather as events occur, or as I see fit. Cope. ^_^

Pseudo-recently, one of the old teachers from Kanashima Jr. High took me to a neighboring village to see the annual festival they have there. It's during the time of the second round of cherry blossoms (the seven-layer ones - less delicate and slightly longer-lasting than the paler variety that come out first of the year), and is highly regarded in the surrounding areas. Here are some pics.

This is the general ambience - the festival took place along a long street with a river flowing down the middle of it and sakura planted along the river, with really old buildings along both sides, and had vendors and shopping and things to eat and performances and all kinds of nifty traditional Japanese matsuri day stuff.

Here's me and Araki-sensei and his two kids, in front of a dashi. (Dashi? I think it's dashi. If somebody wants to do the research to correct me, feel free.) It's a traditional matsuri festival cart, similar to a Mardi Gras float or something, except these have a built-in music section. They all look similar, with variations of color and subtleties of design. There are four small drums on the front of the cart, and a big drum on one side and a brass gong/bell on the other side. In the center, a flute player carries the melody of the tune. The instruments are played with a certain amount of ceremony, but also a certain amount of enthusiasm, and the percussionists on the sides wear harnesses to keep from falling off, and seeing them lean way off the cart while leaning on their harnesses is fairly common. Fun times are had by all.

A better view of a dashi. The drummers up front have stylised drum beat arm motion routines that they coordinate beforehand, and they look pretty cool. The girl second from the left is one of my old students from Kanashima - I ran into a few of the 3rd graders who graduated last year at this festival, that was pretty cool.

One of the high points of any dashi event is when the male members of the dashi squad "pull the dashi." Understand that the dashi are all motorized, and require no manual effort to pull at all. Also understand that when they do this little ritual, there are blocks under the wheels. The sucker don't move. So all the male members of the squad line up holding two ropes attached to the front of the dashi, and on a signal, the two lines kind of slam into each other, jumping around and yelling and making a big spectacle of this farce that they're trying to move this thing, and meanwhile the leaders of the group are on the dashi blowing whistles and yelling encouragement. The two teams of rope pullers just kind of mosh there for a while, and nothing goes anywhere but everyone has a blast being unproductive. It's quite a scene. I have a video. It's very shaky, I was laughing quite hard.

Koto players and their apprentices. That was the first time I had seen the instrument played, I was very happy to.

A close-up of the 7-layer sakura.

The highlight of the day was the samurai procession. I didn't quite understand the tradition behind it, Araki-sensei's English and my Japanese are about on par, and neither is sufficient to hold an in-depth history discussion. I just about know the Japanese word for "history." I'm happy to know that. Anyway, traditions aside, it was cool just to see a bunch of guys dressed up as samurai parading up and down the street.

This guy was all buff. Despite the fact that the name of this prefecture is Gunma, literally "many horses," this is about the only horse I have seen the entire time I've been in Japan.

Here's a guy who I decided was cool enough to let pose with me.

Araki-sensei was a cool guy and bought his kids some fighting stag beetles. They cost him about 20 bucks per pair. For more info on this particular national obsession, I refer you to the links below. Beetle sumo is something that I just haven't gotten into.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_rhinoceros_beetle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushiking

Here's a shot of Araki-sensei and his wife in their front yard. They have a pretty nice place, spacious for Japan. I think the house has been in the family for a while.

Well, I'm gonna call that a post. See you next time!

Thoughts on Japan (AKA Wall of text)

Hey everyone! It's been a while since my last post, so I wanted to regale you with some of my experiences and thoughts about life here in Japan as a reward for being so patient. Your reward is to trudge through a featureless wasteland of text. Try to contain your excitement. ^_^

To begin with, yesterday I went to a pool with a friend of mine and her kids. The pool was called the "Carribean Beach," and I have to say it was done up pretty well. It was centered around a good-sized wave pool, with beach chairs all around it. The whole place was heated to a balmy temperature, and I really felt comfortable in my swimsuit. There were murals on just about every wall and even the ceiling depicting scenes of the Caribbean, with cruise ships, blue skies, ocean waves, tourists, ocean-front houses and hotels, flags of the local countries, etc, etc. There was a lazy river, some water slides, and even a Tiki bar selling non-alcoholic frozen beverages. So, all in all, it was pretty nice for Gunma in early May, when it was still below 75 outside (that's Fahrenhiet). The most noteworthy thing about the day, though, and the thing I would like to draw your attention to, was the body boarding, and the body boarders. Later in the evening, the pool started kicking up some serious waves, and you could rent a body board from the stand and start shredding. I found it interesting that there were a few people that looked like regulars, who came in wetsuits and proceeded to shred as if the waves had personally offended them. These guys displayed some genuine skills, and did some things that I've never seen done on a body board. However, I suspect that they only have this talent in this forum because this is the only forum they know. I don't think that they would be able to stand on a body board with such dexterity if they had ever made the transition to a surfboard. I suspect that thes guys from Gunma, a very land-locked prefecture (in the middle, I might add, of an island nation), have taken up an impractical hobby, and pushed it to extremes that would not be seen in people that actually live near the ocean. This is a phenomenon that I have seen a few times in Japan. For another example, there are the gun collectors. These people publish magazines, have miniature target ranges, and purchase guns at really unreasonable prices. Now, this is in a country where CIVILIANS CANNOT HAVE GUNS. It's against the law. All these guns are replicas, which fire plastic and/or foam pellets. I don't know if they're pump action or spring-loaded or what, I've never fired one. But they're really expensive. An utterly impractical hobby taken to otaku-ish extremes.

On another topic entirely, I would like to discuss the medicine in Japan. The main thing is, it's really weak. I think the Japanese take it as a source of pride that it doesn't need to be really strong, i.e. the Japanese body is tough enough to heal most maladies on its own. I don't know if this is true, or if it's largely hogwash, as I suspect. However, the fact of the matter is that it's tough to find strong medicine and painkillers here, let alone strong over-the-counter medicine and painkillers. I had some Nyquil and Dayquil shipped over from the States, and it came in handy. I'm able to get Bufferin, but that's the only brand I'm really aware of. There are still large elements of Chinese medicine here, acupuncture and herbal and animal remedies and so on, and also preventitive medicine in addition to curative medicine. There's these powders and little brown bottles of elixir-ish stuff you can buy, and they're really popular. You wrap the powders in these little rice paper discs and swallow them. Personally, I'm a fan of pill form. Another thing I find interesting is that despite the inefficiency of their medicines, it's impressive to be a pharmacist. There is even a comic that I have seen about the adventures of a young woman who makes medicines in the Edo period, something which I seriously doubt would be popular in America. Their doctors are some of the best-trained in the world, and I've heard it said from an American EMT who did a study that Japanese EMT's are trained more thoroughly than American EMT's. However, he also said that since the Japanese method offers little real field experience, and tries to control every element, that American EMT's end up with more ability to think on their feet and make judgement calls. So Japanese are better trained, but have fewer opportunities to use what they have learned, which hurts in the long run. Anyway. I think I'll stick with my knock-your-butt-out western medicine, thanks. For now, though, I'll just rely on Bufferin. Cures what ails ya. I've come up with a nifty little ad line for it, though: "Sufferin? Bufferin!" Tell me you guys wouldn't buy some Bufferin if you saw that on TV.

I've largely been basing my opinions of the Japanese mentality from what I see in the teachers at the schools, and also my few Japanese friends. Of course this would be the case. I've largely lacked contact with what I hear as the competetive and slightly ruthless Japanese big business culture. I'd like to experience it a little, but I get the feeling that it's a nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there. For a little glimpse of this, I'd like to refer you to a book by Michael Crichton called Rising Sun. It was written in the early 90's, just at the end of the Japanese bubble economy, so it definitely casts a shadow on the ruthlessness and cunning of big business practices. It exaggerates a lot, but many of the practices it gets right on the money. It's a pretty insightful book, even if you have to take it with a grain of salt. I enjoyed it.

So many Japanese (at least, in Shibukawa - I can't really speak for Tokyo and that) have cell phones, computers, TVs and fancy cars, but still do without clothes dryers, dishwashers, and central A/C. I really can't fathom a reason for this. Don't get me wrong, I don't think I'd trade my computer for a dishwasher, but a dishwasher is something that makes life a whole lot easier if you can afford it. I think most Japanese can afford it, too. I really don't understand. Maybe it's the whole self-imposed discipline thing. Eh. Laziness is the mother of invention.

There is a LOT of Engrish in Japan. It's really not worth it to detail specific cases, since it's just prolific. I think the entire nation just has it in mind that if they put something that they can't read on a T-shirt, it makes it cooler. I guess I kinda had the same thing going with Japanese and Cajun-french music for a while there, but I didn't plaster it all over my body. And it's really not even good. Well, maybe I'll detail a few cases. On a T-shirt: "A few dew fall petals begin the red scene: pretty cutie" On a billboard advertising nature gear: "Lets enjoy woody life." Even in the rare cases where it is correct English, it still ends up stilted and weird. For example, on the tire cover on the back of a Jeep: "Hiking through the wilderness brings me closer to nature." See? Totally correct sentence, nothing wrong with it at all, but still odd. I guess you should just never refer to yourself in the first person in taglines. Anyway. Strange. The kids at Toyoaki elementary school love it when I read their nonsensical shirts to them, they think it's funny that I know what it means, and I think it's funny because it's always so awful. Some of the brand names are strangely familiar, too: American Eagle, Old Navy, New Balance, Puma, etc.

Well, I'm frankly tired, and I'll call that a post. More of my views coming soon. One more thing, though. Yesterday I went to Nikko and saw the huge temple/mausoleum where the ashes of Tokugawa Ieyasu are enshrined. Here's me with the big dog himself.

Best wishes from Caffery-san and Tokugawa-sama.

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.