Nihon Lights

So Christmas has pretty much come and gone in Japan for another year. Its kind of a wonder that its really celebrated at all, since there really aren't many Christians here, but then again, its not really celebrated much. There's no holiday on Christmas Day, so I spent the day both at school and at work, but what can I say... "When in Rome", right?

Still, even though there's no holiday they do decorate the place pretty nicely.. I managed to snap up a few nice pics around Shinjuku station, and Shinagawa station where they have some pretty nice displays. I was surprised to find though, that the Shinagawa decorations were gone 2 days after Christmas. Don't joke around these folks..

Despite the lack of a Christmas holiday though, the New Year's period is absolutely massive, so the traditional Christmas holiday is really just shifted a week or so to become the New Year holiday. Which basically means that as of tomorrow afternoon I'm on vacation for a week!!! (The don't make exclamation marks large enough to express how happy I am about this)

All this excitement might explain why I'm not sleeping yet. I'm like a kid at, um.., New Year's.

Larger than the average fair

Last weekend was the annual Tokyo Tech open campus and school festival. There have been posters here and there around the campus and such advertising the event, so I expected it would be somewhat of a big deal; something like the old SAC carnival at UofT. What I didn't expect was for there to be thousands of people there, from the community as well as the school. There were student run stalls selling all kinds of foods( chocolate dipped bananas, okonomiyaki, etc) and whatnot. The stalls took up most of the space in the main part of the campus, which is pretty big, so they was an absolute ton of stuff to choose from.

The event was for both days of the weekend, but a typhoon blew through on the Saturday, so I don't think that much really happened that day. I dropped by late Sunday to see that there was a stage set up at the bottom of a hill which was packed with people sitting and watching some apparantly famous Japanese comedians, who came in for the event. I couldn't stay as long as I liked, cause I had some bid-nass (i.e. homework) to take care of. Maybe next year.

A taste of home

This week, I had the rare privilege of having not one, but two opportunities to munch some goodness from the motherland (ish)..

One of the professors in my department went to Montreal last week for a conference, meeting or some other such professorial encounter, and he brought back a box of the tried and true, all Canandian souvenir, maple cream cookies. Been a while since I had some of these, so it was a very welcome snack.

Not being satisfied with a simple dessert offering, I found myself at a T.G.I.Friday's restaurant close to my work a few days later. I was happy to find out that they actually have free refills, but not so happy at the price, which was close to $5. Still, it was muchly worth it. Of course I needed to wash something down with my new found limitless spring of everflowing Pepsi, so I settled on the bacon and cheeseburger. Let me rephrase that; I settled on the ten-dollar bacon and cheese-burger. Still, although it might not be something that I repeat anytime soon, it was a dang beautiful thing..

And in other news, I got my internet connection today.. 100Mbps of blazing-fast bit traffic. Now I can finally start that stay-at-home email spam business I've been thinking about.

Nothing special

Well the summer is beginning to wind down here in Tokyo.. Not so many 35C+ days any more, which gets no complaints from me... Classes at school start next Monday, which doesn't mean that I've been on vacation, since I been doing research and preparing presentations and the like for the last little while.
For those who know them, Ed and Maggie stopped though Tokyo a little while back (although anyone who knows Ed and Maggie and most likely knows that already). I'll try to get some of those pictures up and in here in the next little while.

The sucky part of studying...

is tests. I've never been a fan of tests, exams, quizzes, and the like, and today was no exception. Today I wrote my entrance exam for the masters program at TITech. (Until now I've been a research student).. Holy friggen' crap. Let's just say that I had my hind quarters handed to me in a brown paper bag and was told where I stand. No pretty bows, no bubble wrap, just, "Here, get out, and have a nice day".

I'm exaggerating a little, but the gist is that it was tough.. Lots of detailed knowledge, lots of tedious calculations, and not a lot of time. On top of that there's no outline of what kind of material will be on the exam.. section names like, "Math" and "Physics" are supposed to somehow help narrow it all down. ("Please study math ; there will be questions on math"). I can see now why this is one of the toughest schools to get into in Japan.

Of course, I've been preparing for this test for the last few months, so none of this was a surprise to me. Still, doesn't make it any easier. But I'm finished now, so I'm all smiles and sunshine. Tomorrow I have an interview, but hopefully that will be a less trying ordeal.

Now that I've had my little rant and rave, I'm off to misbehave with a beer and a bucket-of-bird (KFC for laypeople).

My B-Day

Last Saturday was my birthday. I can no longer deny that I'm in my 30's as I've now reached the ripe old age of 31. So you may ask yourself, how did I mark this momentous occasion? Why I went out on the Tokyo town in style of course. Well, maybe not a ridiculous amount of style, but enough to get me through the evening. First I went to a funky yakiniku restaurant for dinner (like Korean BBQ, but Japanese style) where I tried duck for the first time. Good and tasty. The grill at this restaurant is actually a flat stone (or what looked like one), and the guy puts the meat on for you and cleans it periodically and whatnot. Special thanks to Emi for arranging this place and the cake and ice-cream that made a perfect desert.

Since I'm always still up for a good booty-shakin, even at my advanced stage in life, the after-dinner festivities included hitting a Tokyo club, called a-life. Gotta say that its my first time being in a club that offers free hair styling to the ladies. They have a full hair and aesthetic salon inside the club. Music was pretty good, and I was surprised to see that so many people seemed to be really into the music, although sometimes large groups seemed to bust out the para para moves, which was a little bit scary.

We managed to stick it out until about 4am when exhaustion got the better of us and we retired to the benches in front of Roppongi Hills to wait for the first train home, followed by a day of rest, recovery and ramen.

Just another Manic Thursday

Well I figure that its been long enough since my last post that I should pop a little something something up on the old weeb here. I don't really have much to say, but as everyone knows that never stopped any blogger worth his or her salt from inundating the world with their pedantic ramblings. Who am I to break with tradition.

Tokyo's hot. Very hot. Hotter than a steamy night of lurid fornication with the entire Japanese women's gymnastics team. Only difference is that Tokyo's heat exists outside of my imagination. Apparently rainy season is supposed to have started, but I've heard on the news that no one's seen hide nor hair of this alleged rain, and even fewer people know when it will arrive.

Speaking of news, this weeks highlights include: an exploding onsen, and on an slightly lighter note, it seems that Hokkaido meat packing company, Meat Hope is in trouble for selling pork croquettes labeled as beef croquettes. Looks like Nippon Ham might be in a position to pick up some market share.

Like I said, not much to say. I'll try to snag some Akihabara pics for next time.

Pivo

So I've finally got around to using the old Google Video to get out this post that I started writing in March... So, after 2 months in the making, I would to introduce you to.. PIVO.

I ran across this display of Nissan cars the other day (on the 4th floor of a mall), and they were showing off some of their more environmentally friendly cars. They also had on display their latest concept car, the Pivo (Pee-vo). Gotta say, its a funky little beast. The doors slide open automatically, there's no back seat, but it still seats 3 people, and the main feature, well, a video's worth a thousand words..



The model driving it was pretty nice too. Friendly I mean. :)

Extra Life

With visions of little green and white mushrooms floating around in my head, I applied for a teaching position at OneUp English school a few weeks ago. My first day was this week. So far, its been pretty good. It's one-to-one teaching, and no kids, so its not as crazy and trying to control a room full of 8 year olds.
From what I've been able to gather so far, my co-workers are a colourful cast of characters, which keeps the work interesting. The students are pretty varied as well, so that seems like it will keep things pretty fresh too.
Taking the train home at 10:00 at night 3 days a week isn't exactly my idea of fun, especially when that train in in Tokyo, where dreams of a seat are seldom realized, but all in all, so far, so good.

I just need to keep my eyes open for Bowser.

Groovin'

One of the things that might not be immediately obvious when you first arrive in Japan is the fact that many streets and outdoor shopping arcades have "Muzak" playing most of the time. I don't know if they've newly installed speakers, or if they just weren't turned on previously, but I noticed that they were playing music on my way in to school today. I got to bop along to the musical stylings of Little Richard and Fats Domino on my way in.

Red beans and ... fries?!?

I stopped off at my semi-local Wendy`s today, in the mood for a treat from the motherland (Actually I went there cause you can get a variety of burgers for about $1 CAN) and I noticed a rather inconspicous sign on the table, advertising an seemingly innocent looking "hamburger". The text on the sign read something as follows: "Instead of meat, we`ve added delicious sweet red bean paste". Once I was done with all of the dry heaving and fainting spells, I came to realize that Japan truly is the land where East meets West.

Day at the office

I seem to be quickly settling in to this whole Research Student thing; I've got my own desk, and my own computer and everything. Since this is an engineering environment, my professor asked me to install Linux on my PC. A simple enough task given a few simple prerequisites; one of which is an installation CD. Everyone that I asked for a CD from responded with, "Which Linux are you looking for?". Apparently there are now 7 million distributions, and our lab used about 3.8 million of those. I still haven't installed any but that's due to other issues.
I instead spent most of the afternoon trying to review some of the umpteen thousand things that I've forgotten since I left school. Today was linear algebra, a subject I did pretty well in back in the day, but between eigenfunctions and linear mappings, characteristic equations and rank-nullity theory, I was a little overwhelmed. Let's see what fun tomorrow brings. :)

What a week?!

It's been a pretty busy week this week for me, and I don't expect them to be too much easier from here on in.. So far I've: moved from Fukuoka to Tokyo, discovered that all "Tokyo" airports are actually nowhere near Tokyo and require at least an hour train ride, got lost about a half dozen times, dealt with super-shady real estate agents trying to pawn apartments that nobody wants off onto me, lost my bank card, started school, and discovered that my favourite beef-on-rice fast food chain has changed their menu and removed my favourite dish. In short, it's been busy. But it's been fun. Mostly. Well different at least. Here's to the next phase of life in Japan.

Temping ain't easy ..

Anyone who has ever been to Japan should be familiar with those annoying people who stand outside of the train stations and departments stores shoving flyers and tissues into the hands of unsuspecting passersby, and generally making a nuisance of themselves. Well.. I got me a new part-time job as one of those annoying people. I hand out flyers for an English school. Its not that bad.. I get to pretend that I'm
"Flyerman", without the leather jacket, and without the Uptown Theatre, and without the eye contact; Japanese people are exceptionally good at ignoring things. Especially when those things are shoving flyers in their faces.. I have to say though, I'm a big hit wiht the over-40 ladies set. I think its cause lots of peoples' mothers want them to study english... I hope...

Nagasaki

Nagasaki photos

I managed to get in a little side trip to Nagasaki this week, which was a nice little break from routine. Of course I made a stop at the Nagasaki Atomic bomb museum, and the Peace Park, but I was also able to check out the sites of some of the few remaining Dutch inspired buildings in the city. (Historical note, during Japan's isolationist period, the country's borders were closed to all foreign influence, with the exception of occasional contact with the Dutch through the port in Nagasaki).
I also managed to get a taste of some Nagasaki champon, which is basically noodles in soup, with bits of pork, mussels, octopus and/or squid, and vegetables. Not a bad little meal, though I would have liked it better if it was just the pork.

Acceptance

Whew, looks like another long while between updates, despite my promises to update more often.. Well I have the excuse that I don't have internet at home, I suppose. Well today's topic is "acceptance". Acceptance of life, liberty and the pursuit of "happyness" (which I saw the other day, and is an awesome movie, but for some reason is called "The Power of Happiness" in Japanese)..

Actually, I lie, its all about my acceptance to the Tokyo Institute of Technology's research student program starting in April. I'll basically be doing research in the fields of robotics and control systems, possibly emphasizing human/machine interface systems. I'm really looking forward to it, and I've been looking back at some of the material that I studied back in the day at school, and realizing, that this crap can be pretty tough stuff. Oh well, wish me luck.

Hot Eats and Cool Streets

Since I've arrived in Fukoka, I've been oot and aboot here and there looking for housing and a job and all of those other boringly insignificant things that keep us all from dying in the street, or wearing tinfoil hats. Well today, I came across what I'm assuming is Fukuoka's big signature mall, Canal City. It's huge. And its really funky looking. For starters its got about 6 floors of shopping, dining, a movie theatre, a musical theatre, and a Grand Hyatt Hotel. Also, its not so much one building as a series of buildings built together, with connecting bridges, and forming a huge courtyard, featuring.... dancing fountains.. Its like the Bellagio show in Vegas with less Celine Dion.

Well all that looking at stuff is pretty hungry work, so I went off to find myself something to eat. I managed to find some of the best unagi (eel) that I've put my lips on since I got to Japan. The eel was good, the rice was good, the miso soup was good. It was all good... with one minor drawback. Cleverly disguised in amongst all that deliciousness was a head... an eel head. But even that couldn't spoil this meal.

(sigh) now back to finding work...

Engrishified

I've been pretty impressed so far at the general lack of Engrish that I've encountered thus far in Japan. Sure there are the the occational "L" and "R" swaps, but that's not too terrible. And with North American 12 yr old girls walking around with "Jailbait" shirts, it's not too far of a leap to see a middle-aged Japanese lady walking around with a shirt that reads "I like it from behind". That being said, I was pretty amused to find a gold-mine of Engrish in my hotel room.. Here are some excepts of what I think they are trying to say (as translated from the Japanese) and what they actually write

Intended: When leaving the room, the small thing on the inside doorknob is the the lock

Actual: Still a key of door in outside room (a lock) of a doorknob of an inner door is small

Intended: If there are any unclear points, please don't hesitate to ask at the front desk

Actual: If there was an indistinct dot without hesitation to the front desk

Dunno; reeks of babelfish translation to me.

Hiroshima

The Hiroshima manga library

The most obvious thing to come to mind when thinking of Hiroshima is the dropping of the first atomic bomb on August 6, 1945 (8:15 am local time). While a lot of the city seems to stand as a monument to those who died in that horrific event, there are a lot of other areas of interest in Hiroshima as well. Now I've never been called a great lover of art, but I was impressed by the outside of the Hiroshima museum of art, which features a sculpture garden and a really cool staircase with mini-waterfalls. I have been called a great lover of food (or a lover of great food, or a great lover, who eats food), and so I was all to eager to chow down on the Hiroshima version of Okonomiyaki, which is pretty famous. I would have posted a picture, but the thought of taking one only occured to me about 3/4 of the way through eating. For all the manga fans, Hiroshima has a library that exclusively carries the further adventures of all your favourites. Food, shopping, and culture are just some of the things that make Hiroshima an intersting place to visit.

monument to the victims,
depicting a clock frozen at 8:15

All that being said, I would be lying if I didn't say that the Peace Park, dedicated to the A-bomb detonation wasn't the most dominant aspect of the city, and the main reason that I came here in the first place.

I'm sure that most people have seen pictures of the Atomic Bomb dome, which was formerly the Hiroshima Industrial Promotion Hall. It, being one of the few buildings left standing near ground zero, stands as-is as a monument to the destruction. The surrounding area, which was levelled in the explosion has been converted to the Peace Park, the main attraction of which is the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. It's the best 50 yen you can spend. Most shocking displays: photos of victims in the aftermath; a cement wall with shards of glass embedded in it from the explosion.

All the photos are here

Thank you, good bye (again)

Well, my Christmas vacation has come to an end... I just want to wish a happy belated New Year's to anyone I missed while I was in Toronto for what turned out to be a way too short holiday. My extra 5 pounds and I will be heading back to Japan very early tomorrow morning. I hope that everyone had a good holiday themselves and thanks to everyone for showing me a good time while I was back in the old T-dot. In response to everyone's incessant complaints, I'll try to update my blog a little more often. :)

Here's to 2007. Let's all make it a good one.