GO! 日本

check me out

2009-08-13T22:18:00.000+09:00

on the radio this morning for the Good Morning Garage show--my first turn up solo, since James and I shared the first round 2 weeks ago. No special guests this time, so it was definitely a different atmosphere (aka no swarms of fans crowding around the DJ booth, lol). Just a couple people hanging out in the Tully's. But it was lots of fun, and I guess I did a good enough show ^_^
They took a picture to post on the GMG website.

in cyberland, we only drink... diet coke

2009-08-06T22:29:00.002+09:00

Today I went to a press conference for the Japan touring production of Rent. It was extra-special cool cause Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp--who originated the roles of Roger and Mark, and played them in the movie--were there too!
Originally I was supposed to get to interview one of them, like one-on-one, but there wasn't enough time or something, so I just ended up going to the press conference at the Shibuya HMV. Which actually turned out to be pretty darn fantastic. So first, AP and Anthony came out and performed "What You Own," literally like 5 feet in front of me! The fanboys behind me were screaming their heads off, lol.

They did a little Q&A bit of course, with the two guys plus Yuka Takara who plays Alexi--cause even tho she's not a huge role in the show, she's the only Japanese cast member, so of course they trotted her out, lol. Tho she was absolutely the most adorable thing I've ever seen. A totally cool person.
Then of course they had to bring out the obligatory tarento, which in this case was Yamada Yu who apparently is a "big fan" of the musical. Whether that's true or not, she acted pretty excited--and was actually pretty cute. Tho... my GOD the woman is tall. I mean, granted she was also wearing like 5 inch heels, but still.

Then, even better--the rest of the cast all came out and joined them and they all sang "Seasons of Love"! well, not the whole cast, but basically all the principals--Collins, Mimi, Angel, Benny, plus Gwen Stewart who does the fantastic female solo in the middle of "Seasons" (she's also an original cast member).

It was absolutely incredible, I was sort of tearing up there for a minute even. I would love to go see the show, but I dunno if I can. I mean, it runs through end of August so I could prob swing it, but I don't know of anyone who would go with me. If I could get a press ticket on the other hand... lol.

Oh, and did I mention I'm now on the radio? In addition to the podcast, I'm on the actual radio now! InterFM (76.1) has a morning show, Good Morning Garage, and every Thursday morning at 9:15am, there's sort of a Metropolis corner, where we come in and talk about what's in the mag, events for the weekend, etc. Rather like the Metpod, actually. Will used to do it, but since he's left they needed a replacement. And both James and I volunteered, so we went together last week for the first time, and now we'll be switching off. James took this morning, so I'll be on next week. It's a lot of fun, but I do have to get up about an hour early in the morning to make it on time. Ah, the sacrifices, lol.

Also, check out my bar review in this week's mag. We're not talking Thrash Zone level or anything, but pretty good all the same. (^_^)

Minato Mirai Fireworks Grand Finale

2009-08-06T00:31:00.001+09:00

And the finale!
Gotta love japanese fireworks.

Fireworks part 2

2009-08-05T23:16:00.001+09:00

Here it gets a little fancier.

2009-08-03T21:53:00.006+09:00

This weekend I went to see the fireworks over at Minato Mirai (technically, the Kanagawa Shinbun Fireworks). It's the same ones we saw last year from the balcony at IUC--they had a party for the summer students and we crashed it, got to watch the hanabi from up high. But this year they set off the fireworks over a different place in the harbor so it was on the other side of the building from the balcony.
So this year we had to watch down with the commoners (lol). But I went over with J and his mom, it was her last weekend here, and even from the ground the fireworks were absolutely fantastic. And I took videos!
Here's part 1.

There's two more vids of the fireworks, but they were too long, or something, and wouldn't upload for some reason. So I put them on youtube (lol)

stuff

2009-07-21T23:57:00.000+09:00

So in honor of it's been just about forever since I've updated my blog, I decided to change the layout.
No idea if I'll keep it like this, I'm still deciding.

And that is really it, as I am totally wiped and going to sleep.
Work has been heinously, gut-wrenchingly busy lately but I survive, and will update for real soon.

whee!!! (on so many levels)

2009-05-24T16:49:00.003+09:00

so totally enjoying the rocking-out of my life atmo. it's been a really great weekend (week?)
First off... this isn't at all set in stone yet so it's possible I'm jinxing the hell out of myself, but it's looking like I might get to do an interview with Narimiya Hiroki!!!!! read: very famous actor, one of the it-guys of the moment, generally considered to be pretty hot--don't judge him solely by the pic in the wiki entry, he usually doesn't look that creepy (altho he does do creepy really well).
I wrote up a kikakusho the other day, and the PR company passed it along to his management, so as long as they don't decide Metropolis is full of shit, I should be hearing some good news by mid-week. Next step--figure out how the hell I'm going to be able to suppress my inner fangirl enough to appear properly professional and journalisty. (>_<)

Then on Thursday, I went over to Roppongi Hills for a press conference for the release of Hip-Hop Abs (from the creators of Core Rhythms and Billy's Boot Camp!) lol. Anyway, it was quite amusing, not least because the promotional tie-up was with Go Hiromi's new single, which he performed at the press conference. (see an old Metropolis article about his career) The man may be a bit plastic surgery for my taste, but there's no denying he looks damn good for 53 years old.

Then yesterday, I grabbed Nermie and made the trek out to Saitama (my first trip to the 'burbs) to see Condors! You might remember them from the Condors/Jealkb "B.L." show that we went to a few weeks ago. Coincidentally, right after we went to see that, Dan decided he'd be doing an Agenda blurb about them. So, as is common, they offered to give us press tickets to go see the show--which Dan didn't want, probably mainly cause he didn't feel like going all the way out to Saitama. So they gave the invite to me, and I managed to get tix for both me and Nermie, cause we'd been wanting to see a Condors show ever since BL.
Anyway, it was fantastic! And only confirmed that Fujita Yoshihiro is officially my favorite member ^_^ You can't tell from the photo here, but his hair is currently blonde with hot-pink streaks. He is a rock star.
AND to top it all off, when we went out to the lobby after, several of the members were actually out there, selling the goods themselves! My boy Fujita was over at the t-shirt stand, cause he creates all of the designs for the group's shirts. So of course I bought one! (Nermie got a towel)

Only to find out--even better--that they were signing the t-shirts too! So of course I got Fujita's signature XD which is a really awesome sig, btw:

Isn't the lil ducky cute? Or...I guess he's meant to be a condor? lol. but now i'm not sure if I can ever wear the shirt. Cause, if I wear it then I'll have to wash it--and the signature might come off! Hmm... I will have to give this one some thought.
But I haven't even gotten to the BEST PART of the story.
I'm standing there waiting as Fujita signs my shirt, when all of a sudden he looks up and is like "You came before too, right?"
I swear to god, the inside of my head just went completely 真っ白. My reaction was so disbelieving he thought maybe he was mistaken and started to be all, "oh..is it your first time" and I'm like no! I just am in complete and total shock that you actually REMEMBERED us! I mean, I know as gaijin we tend to 目立つ rather more than your average japanese person, but they actually saw us in the audience and remembered!!
*floats away on waves of fangirl happy*

so yeah, that was a good day. Nermie and I celebrated by going to her Jiyugaoka darts bar and splitting a bottle of wine and a cheese plate... and then splitting another bottle of wine and staying and chatting with Ken, the bartender, until the trains started running again at 5am. Yeah. Tho I have to admit I started dozing off at the bar around 4:30 (for some reason wine makes me way sleepier than other kinds of alcohol)
With the result that it is now nearly 5pm on a Sunday and I am still in my pajamas, having accomplished nothing more impressive than this blog post and the making of a cup of coffee--in spite of the rather dire laundry situation in which I find myself.

Design Festa

2009-05-16T21:20:00.005+09:00

Design Festa is a big art expo event that's held a couple of times a year out at Tokyo Big Sight in Odaiba. (Like Raleigh's Artsplosure, only indoors, and bigger) I'd never been, but Andre was stopping by to talk to a friend of his who had a booth there, so I tagged along.
And it was totally awesome! Lots of clothes and jewelry and all sorts of neat stuff.
There was an outside stage, where a bunch of bands played.

This is a band called Gwarando, and they were actually kind of ridiculously awesome. Apologies for my lack of video-taking finesse (it's kind of shakey and the sound is hard to hear).
Here's a couple more closeups I took of the guys in the band, cause I mean seriously--they rock!

Here's an overview of *one* of the rooms, this was where the other, indoor stage was.

Some live painting, inside a glass box.

And I just thought these were really cool!

more fun stuff

2009-05-13T21:05:00.002+09:00

Osaka was SUCH a blast, omg. and yes, i know I've been back for over a week now and am only just writing about it, but whatever. forgive me.

This is a picture of the shrine right by Laura's house, and I think it's just about the coolest thing in the history of ever. The whole area she lives in is awesome--Namba, for those of you who don't know, is code for downtown, where-it's-at Osaka. It really reminded me of Ishikwa/Isezaki area in Yokohama--really old, boro-boro kind of apartments with a fair amount of sketch, but right next to the major nightlife area. I felt right at home! XD And it's right by the Yoshimoto theater, so there's a bunch of お笑い芸人 who hang around there. as laura put it, it's "Yoshimoto by day, yakuza by night." (see what i mean about the ishikawacho similarity? as far as I saw, there was no 船の休憩室, but other than that the similarities were pretty striking. lol.

We also got to go to a concert! such fun. it was with 4 different bands, so they each played 3-4 songs--and Laura-tachi were originally going to get tix cause the main band playing was flumpool--who of course i know from them doing the Bloody Monday theme song, and also cause they're getting really popular (which ps the PV in the above link isn't necessarily their most famous one, but it's my favorite song).

BUT

the OTHER band that was playing at that concert was NICO!! i about freaked when i heard, soooooo cool! hehe. so i got to see them play for the second time. ~~(and i may possibly have just bought tix to see their june show....)~~

anywho.

in other news... I went to go see the Cotton USA Awards yesterday. Japan loves to give out stupid awards to celebs, like "best jeanist" (person who looks good in jeans), etc and this one is the Mr/Ms Cotton Awards, to the person who is "natural and fresh like cotton." yeah.

anyway, they have a big press conf to announce the winners and this year it was Kuroki Meisa as Miss Cotton and Daigo as Mr Cotton. and as usual, Daigo was all kinds of lol. I mean, I honestly wonder whether he really is that stupid or not, cause some of the things he says... it's like 奇跡的なボケ level, I mean he's got to be doing it on purpose. ...Right?

we were told before going in to 注目 his 素敵な手袋--cause of course the gloves are his thing, but since he's a "rocker" he usually wears black leather ones. but in honor of winning the cotton award, he specially made cotton gloves for the very first time. and he kept going on about how awesome they were, and how he might wear cotton gloves more often after this (i doubt it).

he's a cutie. tho seriously...seriously...a dumb bunny.

Finally, PV! here's the latest Nico PV--they played this song at the concert last week, which made me incredibly happy. not the best quality video, but it's the only one posted so far. song is called Bigfoot. so of course...they have big feet. lol. and i swear they're channeling The Beatles or something at the beginning.

********************
EDIT: sadly the Nico PV has been removed already, so I've replaced it with flumpool's "Hana ni nare." note--not the same as the PV I link to in the text. "Labo" is my favorite song, but the "Hana ni nare" PV is prettier.

it's the weekend!

2009-04-29T17:47:00.000+09:00

Not really, it's only Wednesday, but what with the advanced production schedules and the random holidays (not that I'm complaining) I swear I don't know *what* day it is anymore.
today's showa day (or something) so I've got the day off. In honor of that (and of the fact that I've got to do a bar review for 791) I went out last night. It was really fun, went to this sort of school-themed 立ち飲み屋 in Baba and met up with Yalie/former HIF compadre/current IUC-er Charles, and Neal which was cool cause I hadn't seen either of them since we left HIF.
Gotta go back to work Thurs/Fri and it's gonna be busy, but then I get Mon-Wed off for Golden Week, so I'm looking forward to that. I'm taking off Friday night (straight from work) to catch the Shinkansen down to Osaka. Laura lives down there, and Nermie was planning to go visit her over GW, and they invited me to come along. I'm excited. I haven't really been to Osaka ever, with the exception of when Ross and I went after HIF, but even then it was only like 2 days and we spent most of it in Nara. So it doesn't really count as far as I'm concerned.

OK, guess that's it for now. Somehow I have to finish listings and write a bar review tomorrow. *shudders* but it'll get done, I spose, it always does.

it wasn't me!!

2009-04-23T22:33:00.000+09:00

upside:
last night I went out to this photo session thing for Drumline Live, which is a stage show along the lines of Blast! or Stomp. Anyway, they're touring Japan and last night was opening night, so of course they had a bunch of J-celebs show up for it. We photogs were all camped out by the entrance so that we could take pics of each of them as they came in, then we got to go up to the balcony and sit and watch the whole show--and take pictures of the show if we wanted!!--and then there was an interview bit after. So it was all super fun, tho I didn't get home until about 11pm. EX. HAU. ST. ED.
でもね、大体こんな感じだったの:

Former sumo wrestler Konishiki and his wife--believe it or not, this is him *after* having lost about 150 pounds.

Ai Takahashi, current leader of girl super-group Morning Musume. I was seriously shocked to see her in person, I mean she look like she's about twelve years old!

And Nozomi Tsuji, former member of Morning Musume--only she "graduated" from the group when she had to have a shotgun wedding a couple years ago. Yes, that's right, she's married and has a kid. .......

Not-so-up side:
~~i sort of kind of broke the flash on the office camera~~. well, i didn't exactly break it and it SO wasn't my fault! see, it's one of those external flashes that attaches to the top of your SLR, and you flip the switch to lock it in place. well, i did that like i always do, and took my pictures, only when i went to unlock it and take the flash off, it was stuck! the lock is broken or something, and now even when you flip it to unlock, nothing happens. and everything still works fine, except for the teensy minor detail that the flash is now permanently attached to the camera. and they're not sure if there's any way to get it off again, short of breaking the flash and having to buy a new one!
*cries*
i didn't do it, i swear!!! -_-;;

in other fail news, clearly I'm not the only one who's having a really really bad day of it. *cough* Kusanagi *cough* I kind of thought the SMAP machine was too big for them to punish him in any serious way, but now I'm not so sure. I mean--making the international news?!--this is getting to be waaaay big. I know lots of people (and lots of people I know) are going to be seriously upset about this, esp if it gets him blacklisted or put on hiatus by the Jimusho, but...I mean really...
The man was found in the middle of a public park at 3am, buck naked, drunk out of his mind and reportedly shouting SHINGO!!! at the top of his lungs.
....it's hard not to laugh.

Lastly, finally and forthwith-- hi mom! I finally got my new twins CD in the mail last night!! with accompanying dvd (said dvd containing the PV for their latest single--finally!!)
also, since Yuzu/Aitai got a bit short shrift cause of this (only 3 days) I'm leaving them up too, as the second song in the playlist.

btw

2009-04-20T22:52:00.001+09:00

I've added an RSS feed to the Metpod, our weekly podcast where you can hear the radio stylings of yours truly. Trying to figure out how to add a player here instead of just the feed, but you'll have to make do with this for now.

the wack-ness

2009-04-20T21:35:00.003+09:00

So remember back last year when I went to go see the Fuma stageplay? (actually, you probably don't, but I did). anyway. it was absolutely hilarious and the most crack-ed out thing I had ever seen. seriously. and i thought at the time that it wasn't possible to make anything more wtf than the Fuma stageplay. ...oh, how naive I was...
This past Saturday! went with Nermie and Laura to go see ~~two performances of~~ this stage show thing featuring Jealkb (you remember them, right?) and Condors--who I had never heard of, but it turns out are this awesome comedy/contemporary dance troupe. Anyway, the show was called B.L.~Ballad of Lip~ and it was over in sunshine city, in Ikebukuro.
It was ridiculously amazing and hilarious and I am entertaining serious doubts about the mental stability of whoever actually came up with it. There was sort of a plot, all about how because of the Lehman shock, the London Visual Arts Academy (jealkb) and the 近藤建築学園 (condors) merged together and made this new department called the ビジュアル土木課, but of course it's a totally random combination, the teacher can't teach, and they're not getting any new students (就職ないから) so the department is going to be dissolved, and the "students" all band together to save it. Anyway, that was ~~ostensibly~~ the plot. and it sort of went like that, only they kept sticking in all these random comedy sketches and dance performances and skits that were absolutely hilarious but had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with...anything at all, really. The sort of thing that makes your head hurt if you try to hard to understand it, so it's just better not to.
Seriously tho, I was laughing so hard I was practically in tears.

And afterwards... we did purikura! haven't done that in ages... teehee. Me, Nermie, Laura and two of their JAL friends. It was fun times, and they were all going out after, for like drinks and karaoke and stuff, and I really really wanted to go (karaoooookeeeee!) but I'd already made plans to get together with Jason and Felicia over at his place, so I left to go there, which was fun. We ordered in pizza, Jason bought some good Belgian beer, and I supplied Iron Man on blu-ray.

P.S. we also took pics out in front of the BL poster in Sunshine City. got some nice lady to take it for us, as well as got a lot of stares. it's a little blurry cause we had to take it without a flash--the glare from the flash was blanking out Haderu-sama! can't have that ;-P

lastly... PV time! i think this week I shall supply Yuzu's new single, "Aitai." which incidentally is the theme to Nissy's new drama Ghost Friends --which we're subbing. lol. tho by we this time, I don't mean Doremii--or Gekiuma actually--this I'm helping out as a guest trans over at Resie's group, Ikemen. anyway, that's not really the point. the point is, enjoy the PV!

rites of spring

2009-04-09T23:15:00.001+09:00

Forget about that flower nonsense--this week, as I was getting my usual Starbucks on the way to work, I ordered my very first iced latte of the year! ~~Now it's official.~~
seriously, tho, it has been crazy warm and beautiful weather lately. and it's almost golden week... which means vacation days (yay) and also crazy-extra-super-fast-work-so-that-we-can-actually-take-a-vacation days (not so yay). starting next week and for the next three weeks, we're shortening the production schedule by a day every week, with the eventual result that by the time the holidays roll around, we'll be going to print a full three days early. *shudders* i foresee some crazy hectic days ahead. makes me exhausted just thinking about it.
but I've been having some fun, too. on Monday went to interview Nakata Daisuke, professional trampolinist, Olympian and star of Muscle Musical (which is a sort of Cirque de Soleil-esque gymnastics/rhythmic/feats-of-strength type stage show). MM are clients of ours, so Niki-san at work arranged the interview, which'll be a star struck sometime in May. It was a really neat interview, very easy to talk to (Niki was smitten, lol). Even better news, looks like I can score some comp tix to see the show whenever I want! Now, just to find someone to drag along with me...
Then today was the press conference for the new Disney on Ice show that's starting up, so that conf was over in Shibuya (at A-X, right next to the MM theater as well as Boxx where I went to see Dustz show, coincidentally). Of course they brought out Mickey and Minnie, and the obligatory guest tarento was Hirayama Aya, a.k.a. the cute younger editorial girl in Hataraki Man. So that was kind of cool. Will be a Tarento Watch piece in 787, but for the time being see here.
Then I've got another conference tomorrow afternoon, for the opening of the new Uniqlo UT store in Harajuku. *phew* (And I wonder why I'm so busy all the time. ~~actually, I don't wonder, I know~~)
Oh, and last nite after work I went to the opening of the new Song Bar Street in Akasaka, which is a sort of recreated yokocho style street of bars (i say "street" but it's indoors). sposed to have a sort of nostalgic feel to it. There was a tachinomiya, a new half/owarai bar, an 80s-themed bar, a cool-looking 40s/traditional Japanese bar, plus some others. I wandered around a bit and peeked into several of the places. Couldn't find anyone to go with me, but I didn't mind, and actually ended up exchanging meishi and chatting with several people, so that was cool.

anyway, I should go to bed soon since I have to be like "go! go! go!" all day tomorrow. (thank god it's friday)
PV is Breakerz again, with their new one. It's pretty cool, but I like their old stuff better than what they've put out since leaving indies. oh well, what can ya do.
oh, and speaking of music, Amazon confuses me. I went to order the twins' new album (yes mom, there's more... ~~*evil laugh*~~) and of course this being japan, there's several versions of the album, some 2-disc with a dvd, some just a cd, varying numbers of songs-- cause (duh) they need to make each person buy as many versions of the album as possible, cause that's the only way you can get all the songs and extras. anywho. i was trying to decide which (one!) i wanted, when lo and behold the CD+DVD version with 13 songs is on sale..... making it actually cheaper than the CD-only version with fewer songs. @.@ go figure. but hey, i'm not complaining, certainly helped to make the decision-making process easier. lol.

色々

2009-03-27T23:06:00.000+09:00

OK, I officially have a new favorite band--and they're not even Japanese! (lol)
so on Tuesday for the podcast recording (www.metropolis.co.jp/podcast for those of you not in the know about where you can hear me every week) we had a special live performance. The band Vinyl Soul, out of L.A., came to our office to perform some songs! You can hear it at the very end of the Wed, Mar 25 podcast. Anyway, they gave us copies of their CD as well, which I have been listening to nonstop. I'm totally dragging some friends with me to go see their concert on Sunday, they're playing at this little cafe over in Okubo, near Shinjuku.

Oh, and I got taken out on a sort of 接待 thing on Tuesday. The good folks over at Iichiko shochu company are trying to market their product to Americans, so they wanted to take some (American) Metropolis staffers out for a tasting, etc. It was ridiculous. they came to the office for 挨拶 with the sales people and then they took me, Sarah N and Yui (she was like, "I'm a 中途半端なアメリカ人" lol) out to this izakaya in Gaienmae and fed us sashimi, and kara-age and nabe, and then had us drink a bunch of shochu and tell them what we thought of it.
i know, "work is rough," right? lol.

oooh, and last weekend I went to see the Dustz concert. SO much fun! lol. I'm a huge fan of theirs--mostly cause the lead singer is f&%#ing hot, but also because I like the music. and they are definitely 10 times better live, the songs come across much more rock than they do on the CD. Oh, and even better, this concert was officially their last con as an indies band--cause they will be releasing their major debut with Sony/Epic Records in May! Yay! They've (obviously, since they got signed to a major label) got a pretty decent fan base, but I felt kind of sorry for them at the concert. Nermal and I were looking around like, "have any of these people ever been to a concert before...?" Nobody was getting into it, nobody was moving, and all these girls had set their purses and shit all over the floor (hello people, that's what the lockers are for!) so that we could have been practically up against the stage if it hadn't been for all the stuff in the way. whatever. Nermie and I totally rocked out, and they definitely saw us. I mean, obvi the whole being gaijin thing makes us stand out a bit, but it was also cause we were practically the only ones who were really into it. Nermie's decided she has a crush on the drummer, lol (--this was her first Dustz concert, she wasn't really a fan before this, but I dragged her to it so I'd have someone to go with). We're going to join the fan club so we can get better tickets to the concert in June.

Oh, and in other news, I got a pack of cigarettes in the mail the other day. Well, not me, they were addressed to the person who lived in my apt before me, but still (only in Japan). It says "enjoy a special coffee break moment with Cabin"--which, caffeine addict that I am, kind of makes me want to try them... (breathe, daddy--- I'm only kidding)

PV this week isn't exactly a PV, it's a youtube vid I found of Vinyl Soul performing their song "Could This Be Heaven," which is one of the ones they sang for us the other day.
Enjoy!

本日はこういう事をしてきました

2009-03-06T00:02:00.000+09:00

about to go to sleep, but I just had to take a moment to say the following:

whee! \(^_^)/

Today I got to my first one-on-one professional interview! Well, I did one with the indie film director a couple weeks ago, but we just met at a cafe and it was more like chatting than an interview (which actually I liked better, but)
this time was totally Notting Hill--went to a fancy Tokyo hotel, with K as cameraman (thank god for not having to take photos myself this time--much less nerve-wracking!). and had to call the PR person to have him come down to the lobby and take us up to the suite where the conferences were going on.
we were originally sposed to do the interview at 3pm, but then they called and said that things were going ahead of schedule, and could we possibly come at 2:40 instead, so we came early--and then 結局 ended up having to wait until after 3 anyway. lol. but that's the way these things go, I guess.
anyway, who was I interviewing, you ask? no one you've ever heard of, but an actress named Mizuno Miki. Who I am actually a big fan of, cause she was in a drama I really like called Hatsu Taiken, which Molly turned me on to back at IUC cause the whole thing takes place in and around Yokohama where we all lived last year. Plus it's a really cute show.
Anyway, I was interviewing her for her new drama that's starting in april, called 空飛ぶタイヤ, about a recall coverup incident with a big auto manufacturer. based on reality, apparently.
it was lots of fun and incredibly nervewracking, cause I'm talking to someone I've actually heard of, and there's like 10 stylists and managers and people just standing there, watching me and listening to the whole thing, and in the midst of it all I'm trying to not sound too stupid with my Japanese, and think of interesting things to say.
I was combination giddy/frustrated when it was over. Kind of had an elated/pained "GAAHHHHHH!!" moment when it was over. (>_<)

but still, go me! Y(^.^)d

and now I go to bed.
and I am holding off changing the PV because while I have received my new twins cd, the PV has yet to be posted online anywhere, that I've found. so you're "stuck with the vampires" a little bit longer, mom.

多摩川

2009-03-02T00:17:00.001+09:00

So, just thought I'd do a quick post introducing some more of my area, Tamagawa. Of course, Tamagawa is, literally, "Tama-kawa," i.e. Tama River.
We had a random warm weekend a couple weeks ago, and I spent the day out on the grass by the water, reading. It was pretty fantastic.
There's some steps, sort of, that people sit out on.

Across the river is Kanagawa (not Tokyo proper).

It's pretty in the setting sun. ^^

This is the entrance to a little temple nearby.

There's also a park by the station, with some pretty little ponds.

Last but not least, new PV. Since mom was freaked out about the last one, I figure I might as well continue the trend with more of my favorite wtf-inducing band, Acid Black Cherry, with "Jigsaw" ^_^

Sorry...

2009-02-09T23:36:00.026+09:00

Lots to write about, not nearly enough time. It's been a while, I know.
And I'm a horrible excuse for a ~~human being~~ blogger.
Let's see... work, work, work, went home for Christmas, work, work...
Magazine redesign... Work, work, work...

JEALKB CONCERT!!!!
So my friend N introduced me to her pet band, Jealkb. They're a visual kei band, but all the members are comedians as their day job--but they got together and decided to form a band, too! Anyway, it's completely crazy, and the concert was such fun. I didn't really know much about them before, but I'm a total fan now! Hehe. This is one of their PVs by the way. Several things.
1. yes, the one guitarist always wears that mask
2. yes, the other guitarist always wears a dress
3. the violinist and the keyboard player can't actually play their instruments, they just pretend
4. incidentally the whole back and forth arm thing the keyboardist does all the time means the man has some decent bicep action going on *wink* (not that you can really see that much in this video).

Ok, time to go to bed, will write more later.
Must recover from my night of headbanging mosh-pit action on Sunday.

...Happy now, Mom?

(Just kidding, I love you)

何で、ナーンだろう？

2008-11-18T22:15:00.000+09:00

So, I recently made the discovery that Tokyo has declared plastic and styrofoam garbage "burnable." So much for the environment. I mean, unburnables garbage is only twice a month, and seeing how the majority of my trash is plastic, it seriously piled up. So seeing as how plastics are now "burnable," it makes my life a bit easier. But seriously, what idiot would think it's a good idea to burn styrofoam? I'm not entirely sure what that leaves for unburnables day--but, I guess that's why it's only twice a month.
We went to the Christmas Illuminations at Tokyo Midtown this past Thursday. It was a beautiful evening, and they held a party at this fantastic Indian restaurant, Nirvana, that overlooks all the lights. It was free-flowing champagne, and lots of yummy curry and naan, and desserts from all of the patissiers in Midtown. Sadly I forgot to take my camera along with me that day, so no pics--you'll just have to take my word for it.
In other news, it's almost Thanksgiving. I was trying to get a group together to go to Fujimamas, cause they do up a big meal on the day, but we couldn't get reservations *tear* No turkey for Sarie.
I swear I had more to talk about, but as soon as I sat down my mind just went blank. Oh well.
New PV: Yuzu's new song, Shish-kebab. Yeah...they're dorks. Get ready to smile ^_~

Fire! 火事だ！

2008-11-13T00:10:00.000+09:00

So there was this big fire over in Gaienmae this afternoon--apparently it was a company where they make explosives and stuff for movie sound effects...?

We could see the huge column of smoke from our office. There was ash all in the air and it smelled horrible.

Let's play a game

2008-11-11T23:40:00.002+09:00

It's called "how long can Sarah 我慢 before she gives up and turns on the heat?"
The answer, I think, is not long, cause it's getting freaking cold in my room. Sweaters and mass quantities of hot tea aren't gonna cut it much longer. {{(>_<)}} brr....
And the trains have been annoying lately, too. Yesterday morning there was some kind of a breakdown on the Meguro line, which backed up all the trains so it took me 40 minutes to get from Jiyugaoka to Shibuya (for the record, even on the local train that usually takes 15 minutes). So of course I was late for work. Not that I got in trouble for it, I mean it wasn't my fault, it was just annoying being stuck on the train for that long. And then in the evening that same day, it was super crowded again because of a 人身事故 "bodily accident" (Japanese euphemism for "we had to stop to scrape salaryman off the tracks").
But the weekend was fun. I got 2 free meals! Well, one free meal and one that was supposed to be free (~~but I'm a space case and forgot to get a receipt so I can't get reimbursed for it~~). Yeah.
The first meal was at this place in Ebisu that's having a renewal open, so they treated us to a meal! It was awesome. They're called えびす小町 Ebisu Komachi.We got a delicious tonsoku nabe (tonsoku is like pig feet--or leg maybe?).

Plus some other really yummy stuff like this cocoa-coated imo thing, and suppon and delicious charcoal-grilled chicken. Jason was with me, pretending to be press for the night. With the hours that guy works, he deserves a free meal.

Then, Sunday night I took Felicia along on my restaurant review at Yebisusan in Sangenjaya's naka-mise (which will be coming out in 766--which means I have to write it, like, tomorrow. Lol). I really like the atmosphere of the place.. casual, friendly, no pretensions. The tables were like plywood set on top of barrels, and you sat on stools. Kind of like some Korean bbq places I've been to.

It was a ホルモン料理 horumon ryori place, which basically means they specialize in....insides. Stomach, brains, heart, liver, tongue....grilled on a stick.
Mmm....hormones...

Of course, they have lots of normal food, too. Like Japanese-style fried chicken. (Japan is the only country where a pile of shredded cabbage and a blob of mayonnaise constitutes a side dish).

Enoki mushrooms wrapped in bacon.

And another yummy nabe dish.

Felicia and I weren't feeling quite up to brains, so we opted to go for some delicious grilled large intestine on a stick (with green peppers).

The peppers were really good. Intestine as it turns out, is not so bad either. It mostly tastes like the sauce, which was really yummy. My only qualm is that it's rather chewy--though not nearly so bad as some other inside-y bits can be.
Ok, with that I need to go to sleep now. More fun stuff to report on later-- we're all going to the press reception for the opening of the Christmas Illumination at Tokyo Midtown on Thursday. Yes, Christmas Illumination. See, in Japan they don't celebrate Thanksgiving, which means they get to skip straight from Halloween to Christmas. But Midtown is gorgeous and there's going to be some fantabulous Indian food, so I'm happy.
It's really funny tho, cause apparently Omotesando Hills is having their illumination reception on the same night, and the Midtown PR lady has called like 5 times already to make absolutely sure we're going to their event, and not Omotesando. ;-P

WTF シリーズ

2008-11-06T22:45:00.003+09:00

Also, I think this is deserving of a place in my "WTF Series." It's a giant red dinosaur in a cage, that's currently residing outside of my train station. Don't ask me.P.S. took the pic with my cell phone camera. Hence the slight wonkiness.

get a move on

2008-11-06T21:46:00.000+09:00

It's a brand new office! Still workin the whole full-of-boxes look a bit perhaps, but it's bigger better and roomier! It's like a real office building, I have to ride up in the elevator with other people and everything. I'm definitely feeling the lack of fantastic yummy lunch places around every corner--don't get me wrong, there are some, but it's not the same--but it's actually not that far of a walk to get to the Omotesando area, so I foresee going to my old lunchtime haunts rather a lot actually. The only downside is the morning commute, which is now 20 minutes longer and involves a bus from Shibuya station. Bleh. But it's really only a pain in the morning--evenings I've been walking from the office to Shibuya, which actually only takes about 15 minutes. It's kind of a nice walk, especially after spending all day sitting on my butt in front of a desk, it's nice to move around. Of course, we'll see how long that lasts once it gets colder. But I can always take the bus if I want.

Sunday I went to the school festival 浜大際 at 横浜私立大学. (same thing we went to with IUC last fall, where I met Jacky and Naoko and Ai-chan). Didn't get to see Ai, but Jason and I headed over and met up with Jacky and Naoko, and hung out with them at the festival for the afternoon. Much fun to be had! ^_^

There we are at an Alice in Wonderland theme cafe that one of the clubs was putting on. Jacky was quite interested in the cat-girl. ;-P Not the best picture, but I didn't take it, so. Anyway, it was awesome, and then we went to Thrash Zone after--my first time since like, June. Yum!

This issue of Metropolis-- my bar review! The Belgian beer bar I went to with Jason, Ben and Felicia is running in this issue. A little on the expensive side, but definitely worth it--well, except for that Pink Killer thing, that was just...gross.
Oh, and slightly awkward, but I'm in the podcast too! Yeah, Metropolis has a podcast, who knew. Well, I knew but I have to admit I never actually listened to it before now. Kong comes in every Tues afternoon and Hiroko and Beau always go in to record segments of it, but this week they asked if I wanted to come in, too! I was kind of nervous, I didn't really know what I was sposed to talk about--mostly just ended up being Keeping Tabs. Anyway, go to the Metropolis main page and scroll down to the Tokyo Metpod-- I'm on the most recent one, Nov 5. You can listen to the whole thing, or fast-forward to my part, which is about 3/4 of the way in maybe? Anyway, it's ok but it's SO WEIRD listening to it, I'm like "that's not what I sound like." lol.

finally (phew!) new PV. apologies to Rei & co (it's been a little less than a week for them) but my favorite wacked-out visual kei band, Acid Black Cherry, has a new pv out, called Jigsaw! Incidentally, this is not it. This is their second-to-latest PV, 20+∞ Century Boys, which only just got a decent version of it posted to youtube. (Jigsaw isn't posted at all yet, aside from the 30-second preview version)
anyway, enjoy! The setting is the band (dressed up as dorky high school girls) is staking out a concert waiting to meet...well, themselves...but there are three "cool" girls who keep getting in the way. it's love.

(ｰ｡ｰ)ﾌｩ

2008-11-01T20:39:00.003+09:00

Boy am I tired! It's been a long week. Good, but just really long, mainly cause of 2 things--Metropolis's annual Halloween Glitterball that was on Thursday, and the fact that we're moving to a new office over the weekend.
Which mostly means that our office has been filled with boxes and other crap for days now--empty boxes to pack our stuff in, and boxes of beer, flyers, balloons--you name it--for the Glitterball. Craziness ensues.
So on Thurs, I spent the morning at a press conference for Hellboy 2, which would normally have been kinda meh, whatever (I mean it's not like I've seen the movie)--except that the director, Guillermo del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth) was *super cool*. He was talking about how Hellboy is "autobiographical." lol.

Anyway, he was a total rockstar.
So I got back from the press conference just in time to finish up a few things and then Hiroko and I headed over to Womb in Shibuya to help set up for the party. I swear, when I got there only an hour and a half before the doors were scheduled to open, and took a look around, it was like "there is no way we're gonna get this ready in time!" Cases of beer stacked 10 boxes high along one wall, folding tables in one corner, a thousand or so gift bags in huge piles.. it was ridiculous! But somehow, miraculously, we got everything set up and even had time to duck into the bathroom and change into our costumes. I was going for a sort of cowgirl theme--found a cheap hat at Tokyu Hands--perhaps embarrassing, but that was the only part of my costume I had to buy. lol. That's Hiroko on the left, she dressed up as Yoko Ono ^^

So I was scheduled to work the door handing out glowsticks from 7:30-8:30, but I got drafted into sticking on wristbands right at 7 when the door opened. It was ridiculous. People had been lining up for a while already, and as soon as they opened the door it was just like the floodgates and all these people came pouring in. I heard later that 20 minutes after the doors opened, the place was at capacity. And they just kept letting people in. The 3rd and 4th floors were supposed to be reserved for VIPs and special guests, but they ended up having to open those up to everyone cause it was just too crowded.

I mean, it was a lot of fun, and I got to hang out with my friends so I'm definitely glad I went. But--Seriously. Crowded.
So it's not like I stayed out past the last train or anything, but I got home really late. Steve had said it was ok for us to come in late on Friday, like at noon, which was cool, but I still only got to sleep in like an extra hour because I had to go all the way out to frigging Odaiba in the morning. See, we needed a photo from Fuji TV for the terebi article, and sometimes the tv studios get all annoying and for some reason can't/won't send a photo as an email attachment (cause that would be too easy) and instead they make you physically go down to the office and pick it up. Makes no sense but しょうがないや。
Got to the office around noon, only to find it everyone either gone or hungover, and the whole place looking pretty much like this:

Yup, it was a packing day. I'm all sad to leave our office :-( not that the office itself is particularly nice, but I really love the area. And the new area, aside from being a pain in the butt to get to (gotta either walk 15 minutes or take a bus from the station) is, from what I hear, not so much with the tons of fantastic restaurants that our current place has. It's gonna be really weird. We put everything in boxes, the movers are hauling it all over the weekend, and when I go in to work on Tuesday it will be to a different office.
I am gonna get so lost.

By the time everything was finished up, I was completely exhausted. But Fri night was the big party for the 1st anniversary of the Omotesando Gyre building, and we got invited to the MoMA Design Store party there. All the shops in the building were doing promotions and events and things--MoMA, Chanel, this organic restaurant called Cinegro was giving out awesome food...it was really cool. And there were these very odd box-headed recycling people wandering around...? I didn't really get it.

And there was some sort of champagne lounge that had--well, champagne--and also a live performance by some duo called MCU. I tihnk they're newbies, like they're gonna debut in a few weeks or something? They were pretty good tho. They got everybody really into the show, dancing and everything. I took a video. hehe.

New PV: another Fuma! well, technically his character was a Yasha but...

For those of you who don't know, I'm referencing the crack-tastic high school-sports-feuding-ninja-clans show Fuma no Kojiro that we subbed, and the fact that the twins (see last PV) as well as the lead singer of this band, Rei, were all in the show.

Anyway, the PV is not the most interesting (fairly typical for a debut PV) and it came out several months ago--but I like the song and I don't have anything better to post this week. lol.

enjoy!

(wow this was a long post)

and then some

2008-10-22T20:12:00.000+09:00

so the other day I went to the bank to change my registered address on my account--cause you can't do that online, you have to do it in person. whatever. anyway, in the process of showing them my gaijin card to prove my current address, it was pointed out to me that my card had expired. In August.
>_< doh
I guess, when I got my visa, I thought that took care of everything, and I didn't realize that my actual card was expiring too. upshot of which is I had to get up really early and head over to the ward office the other morning before work to get it all fixed up. and hope they weren't too mad at me. lol. which, it turns out, they weren't, so that's all good. cause, i mean, my visa stuff was all taken care of, so it's not like I was staying illegally or anything. and since I was good and got up early and got there right at 8:30 when the office opened, I wasn't even late for work! well, not by more than 10 minutes anyway.
let's see, what else... oh, I found out my latest bar review is going in 763, so look out for that Nov 7.

we had a big meeting about the redesign this morning, and Steve had given us all sorts of stuff we were sposed to come up with ideas for. i was okay on the ideas for the new sections, and multimedia which i'm gonna be in charge of, but Steve wanted us each to come with 2 ideas for features that we could do in-house, with photos and stuff. and i was just drawing a COMPLETE blank. I mean, I can come up with lots of ideas, but nothing that feels big enough to be a feature, you know? anyway, I managed to fudge through it okay. and we're gonna start having regular Ed meetings too (genuis! what an idea!) so we'll be talking more about it again next week.

人生はいろいろ、女だっていろいろ

2008-10-15T21:04:00.001+09:00

Wah, I'm tired!! (@_@)
But on the plus side, I was actually able to finish all the things I was supposed to today. On the way to work this morning, I was seriously doubting it. Didn't take a lunch break but....
On the other plus side, I got paid today! Which is also very good as I looked at my bank account over the weekend and was a bit dismayed to learn that I was down to my last 1万円. Then I thought, "wait, that means I made it through the month with $100 bucks to spare!" And I felt a lot better. Plus I went on a bar review this weekend, which means I'm gonna get reimbursed for that at the end of the month too, so that doesn't actually count as money I spent. (((o(^o^")o)))

Speaking of bar review, the place I went to was really awesome, this Belgian beer bar next to Yokohama station, called Glass Dance. I dragged Jason, Felicia and Ben B with me and we had a grand old time. ~_^ Cost a pretty penny, but the beer was fantastic and work footed a good chunk of the bill so we didn't really mind. This was our first round! You can see Ben there, enjoying himself. And if anyone ever has a chance to try a Belgian ale called Delirium Tremens, I strongly suggest that you do so, because it is FANTASTIC. See how it comes in a glass with pink elephants on it? hehe. Not sure when the review's gonna run, but I'll give an update. Month or so maybe?
We're gonna have a lot to do in the months to come, too. Steve had an editorial meeting with us last week talking about ideas for the big redesign he wants to do. Totally gonna shake up the whole concept of the magazine, which I think is a good thing. Not that there's anything wrong with it, but as Steve pointed out, when Metropolis first started out, we were pretty much the only source for English-language information on events, or galleries, or restaurants or whatever in Tokyo. But now there's the internet and anyone with a blog can basically do what we're doing. So we need to adapt to the new environment and find a new niche for ourselves. Move away from long-form articles and toward more and shorter ones, so we can get in more information about more things. I like it, and we were all pretty psyched up about coming up with ideas and stuff, but as Hiroko pointed out, it's going to make a lot more work. Especially for the two of us. With the result that we really really need to get some more hands on board, whether slave labor interns or part-timers or whatever, if only so that Hiroko and I don't have to do listings anymore. Cause that's complete and utter brainless busy work, but it's really time consuming. No listings would give me an extra day and a half, easy. And while it's true that at the moment, I often complain about having nothing to do on Thurs/Fri, if the last couple weeks are any indication that's 100% a problem of the past.
*sigh*
Oh, on another note, I have a CD review coming up in tomorrow's edition! Only like 100 words so it's not that big of a deal but it's of the NICO album that I stole from Dan. lol.
Speaking of albums, I ordered the twins' new single, which hasn't even shipped yet according to amazon, and it came out *yesterday* thank you very much. (≧ヘ≦)
Speaking of twins, this week's PV is the new single of theirs that I ordered but haven't gotten. Again I say (≧ヘ≦) arrgh. It's totally schizo and melodramatic (not their fault for the record, it's the theme song for some gothic romance vampire anime) and can't decide what kind of song it is, but parts of it have really grown on me (i.e. become unbearably stuck in my head).
Factoid 1: they actually dance a little in this one! (usually they just kind of do this bouncing in place thing which is awkward and sad)
Factoid 2: they get a girl!
Factoid 3: I'm pretty sure it's a gaijin, even tho she's not blonde
Factoid 4: I don't like her. At the end, when the veil comes off, I'm pretty sure she's sposed to be all sad, or pensive or whatever, but I think she just kind of looks constipated.
Thoughts?

Something sweet

2008-09-30T22:27:00.000+09:00

Anyone ever heard of the "Picasso of Pastry," Pierre Hermé? Well, I hadn't until recently. But apparently most Japanese people have heard of him, and he has a shop in Tokyo.

And on Monday afternoon, Hiroko and I got to go to the press reception for the unveiling of his new line of sweets, at the unbelievably fabulous New Otani Hotel. Seriously, this place is amazing! And it has one of the most fantastically gorgeous Japanese gardens I have ever seen. Ever.

Oh yeah, and the sweets were nothing to sneeze at either ;-P It was basically like a big, free dessert buffet. I have no idea how much food they must have made for it. (To give you a slight idea, there was an open-to-the-public party version of the event that evening--basically the same deal, only they charged about $140 a head).
Fancy banquet room

And the parade of sweets

And finally, the man himself:

It was a really fantastic event. Hiroko and I were suffering from major sugar shock afterward (>_<) It was also kind of weird, cause the chef was speaking in French, and then his translator put it in Japanese--so I was kind of half listening to each language ;-P Reminded me how sad it is that I really can't speak French anymore. I end up saying things like "le francais ga wakarimasu." .... yeah.
At any rate, "yum!"

Other stuff

2008-09-19T22:41:00.003+09:00

Metropolis Issue 756

My first restaurant review! Cha-coo-la. Check it out.

Also the terebi blurb about the Pochitama press conference that I went to, though that's nothing really special.

Other good things:

I got another free CD at work today! First album by my new favorite band since yesterday: NICO Touches the Walls. Saw the cd when I was going through Dan's mail yesterday, decided to go home and look them up, listened to one song, decided I would become obsessed with them liked their music, downloaded all of their songs to date, and at work today asked Dan if I could possibly have their cd cause I'm a really big fan.

I tend to do this a lot.

But at any rate, I got the CD! Seriously, though, they do have this one song "The Bungy" that is one of the most fantastic things I have ever heard. I really want to put it up as video of the week, but there isn't a good-quality version of the PV up anywhere. The video quality of this one is pretty good (click "watch in high quality") but the audio is slightly out of sync. Still, WATCH IT and tell me it's not the best song ever. (and if it's not, then I'll know you, at least, have more of a life than me).

Also... here's the promised photo from the 252生存者あり press conference.

That's Hideaki Ito in the middle, with the kind of awful fake tan.

Cole Haan 80th Anniversary Party

2008-09-19T21:46:00.007+09:00

Thursday night.

We got to go to...well, you see it up there in the title. It was a really ridiculously cool party, very fashiony (read: lots of champagne, next to nothing to eat) at the Aoyama Geihinkan which is a crazy roman-style colonnaded building near my office. Apparently it gets used for weddings and stuff a lot.

When you walked in, they gave everybody a bag full of US pennies...which was really weird until we realized that there were blackjack and baccarat tables set up and that the pennies were for betting at the games. Sort of reminded me of Yale Casino Night, only with more expensive clothes, and celebrities. Beni Arashiro was there, and so was Kazuhiro Nishijima, which is really funny because our arts editor Dan just interviewed him, and we're about to put him on the cover of Metropolis! lol. He was really popular with the press--everybody wanted to ask him about his recent engagement to former Takarazuka star Miki Maya. 0.o

Some pics from the event:

These candles sell for upwards of $1000 in Harajuku.

Tents full of fashionable people.

More candles, by the pool.

Shoes and bags display by the entrance.

The blackjack tables.

It was a pretty swanky party. There was also a jazz band playing most of the night. They were really good! Dan said it wasa guy called Jose James--he's playing at Billboard Live Tokyo this weekend.

ugh, tired

2008-09-16T22:13:00.003+09:00

I was at work until 8:30 tonight *cries* And I'm gonna have to try and get there right at 9:30am tomorrow morning, too.

Not all bad, but--the reason I had to stay so late tonight was cause I got behind on the listings, which have to be turned in Wed morning (hah--that's not gonna happen).

But the reason I was behind on listings is cause 1) it was a 3-day weekend so we had Monday off (yay!) and 2) I spent all morning today at a press conference (more yay!).

It was a Japanese movie conference this time, for a film that comes out this December, called 252 生存者あり (Survivors Found!). It's basically your average disaster flick, about a ginormous typhoon destroying Tokyo. And the 252 thing is apparently the "code" in rescue-squad language, meaning that you've found survivors, like in a collapsed building or something. Anyway, it looks kind of cool, and has some actors that I like in it--like Hideaki Ito, who it turns out in real life is the most ridiculous space case ever. He was sooo not paying attention during the conference and kept having to ask the MC to repeat the question. Seriously, he did it like 3 times. (>_<)

Anyway, I got to take some pictures yet again, and it's eventually gonna be a Movie News--not anytime soon tho, cause the film doesn't open until 12/6, so we'll probably run the article closer to then.

PV update--we're going old school!

This song was pretty much the theme song for my HIF class, resulting in many failed attempts to sing it at karaoke.

懐かしい～！ \^o^/

free lunch (and dinner, and another dinner...)

2008-09-07T16:35:00.003+09:00

i really need to start doing more of the whole one quick post every night thing, or something. cause if i don't, then it gets to like now, where I have a million things to write about, but no energy to do it. >_<

oh well.

most important news first--I finally got my work visa! and yes, i know you're going "but hasn't she been working for over a month already?" to which I say: sshhhhh!

got to go to a couple more restaurant openings this past week (three, to be exact. god i love my job). really, there's nothing that tops a delicious free dinner. especially when you're living on my budget.

Sunday night was dinner at Console, a restaurant/wime bar in Roppongi. had a really good recommendation from the sommelier, a Chilean red called Montes Alpha that I liked a lot.

Monday night I went to the opening party for a new restaurant near Yokohama station. This one was more of a press thing, so it was crazy crowded and really hot, but the food was pretty good.

Tuesday I got to go to a press conference for this TV Tokyo show called Pochitama, all about pets or something. Anyway, I'm kind of a fan of one of the hosts of the show--and am currently subbing one of his dramas (hehe)--so I finagled my way into going. I mean whatever, I turned it into a terebi blurb, so it's not like it was completely pointless.

Wednesday night was yum! Went with the rest of the eds to the opening of a new macrobiotic restaurant in Ark Hills, called Chaya. Apparently there's one in LA or something? Anyway, it was incredibly good food, I was stuffed. Plus there were several Japanese celebs that came, which was kind of cool. None of my personal favorites, sadly, but several people I reconized, one of whom was Fujiwara Norika, a crazy famous actress/model/former Miss Japan. I swear, I see her on at least 3 billboards/TV commercials a day.

Thursday I got to go to a restaurant for lunch, to do a review! ^_^ Haven't quite finished writing the review yet, but it's scheduled to go in 756, which pubs in like, 2 weeks or so.

Speaking of reviews, some of you already know this, but check out the Metropolis site cause this week I have TWO articles in--my bar review of Gala Dear, and the Star Struck piece about Jodie Foster (look under Faces & Places).

parties and such

2008-08-26T22:20:00.003+09:00

it's been a busy week.
Monday me and the other Metropolis eds got taken out on the town in style. A couple weeks before I joined the mag, they did a review of a place called Charcoal Bar Tunnel in Roppongi, and apparently thanks to the review, they started getting lots more foreign customers, and they were so grateful they called and asked to treat us to dinner! yummmmm
We got to meet the promoter of the restaurant, and the 社長 who was like "here's my card, it's got my cell phone number, anytime you want to come here give me a call and you can eat for free." seriously!
then, on Tuesday night Hiroko and I went to the 1 year anniversary party for Billboard Live Tokyo. again, seriously yummy food. and it's an incredibly neat venue, really small and intimate. i kept imagining how cool it would be to go see a live there.
no pictures, but i did actually get around to replacing my broken camera yesterday--yay! i am SO in love with my new digicam. so hopefully there will be lots more pics to come.

oh, and speaking of pics, i get another photo credit in this week's Metropolis! so, i was writing the terebi blurb, and i decided to write on this tv tokyo show about famous japanese landmarks, that was gonna be showcasing Itsukushima Shrine. mostly cause i hadn't had time to call for a photo yet, and TV Tokyo has a site where you can DL press photos. only, it turns out that the photos they had up for this show weren't very good (you'd think on a press site they'd have decent quality photos!) and the design people were all panicking, so Steve goes "does anybody have any photos of Itsukushima Shrine?" and i was like, "oh! i do, actually...." (cause we went there during the Great Nihon Adventure when my parents were here, on which trip I took literally about 500 photos...
so, in short, the below photo (slightly cropped) is running in this week's Metropolis! (my second photo credit!) XD

Field trip!

2008-08-21T23:27:00.005+09:00

Today the other eds and I took a trip over to Tokyo station. We're going to be doing an article in a few weeks on 駅弁 ekiben. They're seriously a craze. There are a million different kinds, and if you search online there are tons of websites devoted to ranking and cataloging all the different kinds of ekiben.
We decided to just focus on Tokyo station, so the four of us went over there this afternoon and each bought one ekiben (except for Steve who got 2), took them back to the office, where Koji-san photographed them, and then we ate them for lunch!
It was pretty fun. I won't talk much about them now, so keep your eye out for the article in issue 756 (a month or so away). Oh yes, and might I add that the excursion also culminated in one of the eds going on a beer run.
Yes, we drink at the office.
At 2pm.
On a Thursday.

Also! Be sure to check out the Movie News section in this week's Metropolis, to see my Emily Deschanel piece (and photo that I took).
Or, on second thought, maybe not. It's there, but not terribly pretty on the website (and there's no photo). Scroll down (keep scrolling....) and it's in the left sidebar, under the "eiga" section.
Maybe you should just check out my Koizora blurb in terebi instead.
( Cause Squishy's hair is lol >_< )

-----------
Also, there's a PV again. Very very strange group called "Ego Wrappin." They've got a really quirky sound, but I kinda like it.

Lingerie is Love-Jewelry

2008-08-19T20:54:00.004+09:00

Sometimes I am right.
Got an email from Chris today, who's the person in charge of the movie sections at Metrop, asking me if I had managed to get any photos at the Jodie Foster press thing yesterday.
Flash backward to yesterday's conversation--

me: Can I have the camera to take with me to the press conference?
them: no, Chris said he's sending a photographer, you don't have to take photos this time.
me: oh, I thought I did.
them: no, Chris said he's sending someone.
me: okay

Back to today.
Chris didn't send anyone. Which, actually is not that big of a deal--they always have an official photog at these events, so all we had to do was call up the movie company and have them send us a picture, which they've already done. I just thought it was funny.
Oh, and it turns out that my piece on Jodie Foster is going to be a Star Struck instead of a Movie News--because Will Smith, who the SS was supposed to be about, is too cool to give an actual press conference--which means that now I have to write 600 words instead of 250. Thank goodness I took a lot of notes.

P.S. the subject line has nothing to do with anything, it's just the ad line from a poster I saw on the train today.

Interviews! the good kind

2008-08-18T21:43:00.002+09:00

So Metropolis, as an entertainment/&c mag, gets to go to some really cool events! (read: the pay may suck, but the perks very nearly make up for it)
So, first off: 2-3 weeks ago, Emily Deschanel came to Tokyo to promote her TV show Bones. It's been airing for like, 4 seasons now, or something, but the third season starts airing on Fox satellite here in October, so she was here promoting that. And I got to go to the press conference! It was in a suite on one of the upper floors of the Peninsula Hotel near the Imperial Palace--picture that scene in Notting Hill where Hugh Grant's character goes to the press thing for Julia Roberts, with all the cameras, in the hotel suite...it was kinda like that. Kinda scary, I had to take photos too--so there's a bunch of pro photogs with lights, and reflector things, and multiple cameras...and then there's me going, "Okay, cheese!" (lol, I mean not really, but it was almost that bad)
But I got to write up a movie news blurb about it, and my photo will run, too... so check out the Metropolis website on Friday, when the next issue comes out, and read all about it!

Second off: today, I got to go to another press conference for Jodie Foster! This was a really big one, so there was no one-on-one time, or me taking pics (they hired a pro this go-round. I tried not to take it personally). But I did get to ask a question!
Check this out: where I was today

Okies, that's it for now. And from now on, I promise to post updates ona regular basis. Oh, and I hear that Metropolis will be starting a blog soon, too, so perhaps you will get to see me posting in another place, soon, too!

復活!!

2008-08-18T20:29:00.002+09:00

Not that there's anyone still reading this blog--but just in case, this is to announce that I am finally starting it back up. What's it been, a month? (no, probably more)
In any case, there's far too much to catch up completely so I'll just give a brief run-down.
My parents came to visit right after IUC ended, and we went on a whirlwind tour through Tokyo, Yokohama, Nikko, Kyoto, Hiroshima, and Miyajima.
And just as the trip rolled around toward an end, I got a call from Metropolis, with a job offer! So I've been working there for...well, nearly a month now. I'm an editorial assistant, which means I'm in charge of exhibitions, events, and club listings, as well as a few of the weekly blurbs like keeping tabs and terebi.
And in honor of my new job--and the fact that it's in Tokyo, and not Yokohama, I've moved!! I'm living in a real apartment of my very own, with a fridge, and a washing machine, and a bed, and a real closet....and it all feels very adult and weird.

And, that's the catch-up. Check out my kodakgallery for pictures from my trip with the parents, and there will be pictures of the apartment soon, now that it's up and running (tho there's been a slight mishap with the camera--as in i might have to buy a new one).

endings and beginnings

2008-06-07T23:46:00.003+09:00

Also, IUC is over!
waaahhhh.....
But, here are some pictures from the end, courtesy of Matsumoto-sensei, IUC's resident photographer. At every IUC event, he's forever popping out of corners and snapping so many photos that when you flip through them, they play almost like a movie. >_<
Anyway, here's me giving my final presentation:
The group of us (most of us anyway) who took shodo
And receiving my graduation certificate.

Which, this time, they didn't forget! Lol (unlike a certain HIF graduation ceremony I attended)...

Oh yeah, and I did really well on my final test!!! ☆★☆

Oh, and speaking of endings/beginnings, in a few short hours, my parents will be arriving in Tokyo! Whee!! Along with my 幼なじみ Rebecca and her mom. \(^_^)/
So, just to let you know, I probably won't be making many posts on here for the next couple of weeks, as we'll be travelling around Japan. Needless to say, I'm sooooo excited!

Oh, and I suppose I should change up the PV, hmm? Let's see, I've got to pick a good one, since it might very well be up for a good long while.
OK, I can't resist. What else, but the new PV by DoReMii's favorite twins, ON/OFF.
<3

Job Stuff

2008-06-07T23:17:00.002+09:00

So, it seems like the job stuff is getting going a bit more. ^_^
Thursday I had my interview at Metropolis. The building is in Omotesando, which is an incredibly ritzy area of Tokyo--on my way to the interview I walked by Prada, Cartier, Dolce & Gabana, Nanette Lepore...and those were just the names I recognized!
Anyway, I got to the station 20 minutes early, but さすが me--I got horribly lost. It was a pretty easy route: walk down the street from the station, and turn right at Prada. First I overshot the Prada store--which being Prada, was too fancy to be labeled properly--and had to turn back. Then, cause I was all turned around, I went the wrong way at the corner, and ended up in 5丁目 instead of 3丁目. *sigh* With the result that I was about 10 minutes late.
Not. Good.
I mean, that's not exactly the way to make a good impression.
And the interview itself was really short, because I'd been supposed to come in at 11, and they had another person coming in at 11:30.
Other than that, though, I felt like the interview itself went fairly well. They said that they had liked my resume and cover letter, and seemed like they were interested in talking to me more, if there had been time. Also, I feel like I was able to show off my Japanese a bit, too. One of the editors--probably half (perfect Japanese, perfect English)--started talking to me in Japanese; 日本語、大丈夫ですか, that sort of thing, and I think I carried it off pretty well.
Before I left, they gave me a sort of a writing test to take home: a sort of promotional flyer from a restaurant, outlining their new menu (in Japanese, of course), and then I was supposed to turn that into a 100-word blurb for Metropolis's "Word of Mouth" section. They told me to get it to them by the weekend, but I sent it in the same day--hoping to impress a bit with speed, I guess. ^_^
Anyway, they said they would be making a decision within the next two weeks.

Also, I found out that I get an interview with the Japan Times, too! That's the major English-language newspaper in Tokyo. They asked me to come in on the 19th, when I'll have to do the combo test-interview thing again. But, this time I was told that I'm allowed to use my dictionary!!! Which was such a relief. I mean, hearing that, I feel like whatever they throw at me, bring it on! You know?
^_^

So I'll let y'all know how that goes.

fun stuff

2008-06-07T22:25:00.004+09:00

Let's see...what have I been doing lately?
Lots of fun things. ^_^
Molly, Jason, Misa and I finally got to meet up with some of the HamaDai kids again, and we all went to a Yokohama Baystars baseball game! About time, too. For all that I live practically next door to the stadium, it was my first time actually going. We got the cheap seats, and the Baystars lost (apparently they're not very good this year) but it was lots of fun! In the picture is Jamie, Naoko, and Molly. Yeah, I'm really not sure what that face is about....
The next weekend I went out to Enoshima, which is a small island near Tokyo--it only took about 45 minutes to get out there, but felt like a whole other world. The weather was beautiful, and there were palm trees everywhere--it felt almost like Hawaii! lol. Got a lot of exercise, too, cause there were a LOT of stairs. >_<
A little further up the stairs...
At Japanese temples, there's usually a donation box out front, where you throw in a few coins, clap your hands, and say a short prayer. This one was a little different... The sign says "Coin-Washing White Dragon. In this pure golden water, wash and purify your feelings and the coins, and make them reach it."
Lots of people out boating.
The other side of the island looks a little different.
Isn't this guy amazing? ^_^

御無沙汰致しております。

2008-06-02T00:16:00.004+09:00

So, I'm not dead. Not in the literal sense, anyway. I've just been super busy, and before I knew it it had been over two weeks since my last blog post. Ouch.
But, things have been a mix of fun and stress lately. IUC is over--well, almost entirely. Classes have ended, and we took the test last Monday. I actually really appreciate the way IUC handles the exit test: for the written part in the morning, they give the exact same placement test that kicked our asses at the beginning of the program. Which makes it really easy to gauge how far you've come. Don't know how I did for sure yet--we find out at the final evaluation session on Friday--but it was SOOOOOOOOOOO much easier this time around! Especially the kanji section, because this time, I actually *knew* most of them! (^_^)d
So, all that's left now is the Final Presentations, which take place Tuesday and Wednesday, and then we'll be done for real!
I promise to post another, more detailed IUC wrap-up post later.

In other news....
On the Job Front:
I've been applying for jobs!!!! And starting to get some results. A lot of my resumes haven't been making it past the initial screening by the recruiting companies, but I actually had a real live interview last week (which sadly, also ended in a rejection, but!). It was an editorial position with a company that publishes textbooks to teach English. There was an interview, and a test, all in Japanese. See, it's standard practice for Japanese companies to administer a test as part of the interview/hiring process--and since they're designed to test the Japanese abilities of Japanese people, they're....um.... "hard" is something of an understatement.
But, it was a good experience, to sort of get the first Japanese-interview nerves out of the way a bit.
And even MORE importantly, I have another interview on Thursday! And this time, it's in English (i.e. I actually stand a fighting chance). This next interview is for an Editorial Assistant position with Metropolis, an English-language weekly magazine in Tokyo. It's an Arts & Entertainment, resaurant reviews type of thing, sort of Time-Out style. Crossing my fingers extra hard, cause this seems like it could be a really good thing.
Anyway, I'll keep you posted. And I promise to write more later, with some pictures and potentially some updates on the "fun" part of my last few weeks. But now for sleep, cause I have to get up in the morning to practice my presentation.

Lastly, finally getting around to changing the PV.
For the first time, I will be featuring the wonders of Japanese girl-idol groups. This one, Perfume, has recently taken IUC by storm, with their peppy blend of electronic-synthesized-pop.
The song is "Polyrhythm," which shot the group to fame after it was chosen to feature in...I kid you not... a recycling commercial.
See how long it takes before the synth makes your head explode. (^_~)

どうも、お久しぶりです！

2008-05-15T00:58:00.004+09:00

apologies for the lack of posts recently, but I've been busy as all hell. while in terms of classwork, IUC has slacked off a lot in recent months, in terms of everything else I've become too busy to even think. actually that's a lie, the thinking part I've got down pat--haven't been sleeping well lately cause my head's so busy that I have trouble falling asleep at night. I just keep thinking about the fact that I don't have a job, or that I haven't done my project work for the week, or that it's been 3 days since I last took a SKIP quiz....the list goes on.
Slightly better news tho, I've put in applications for a whole mess of different jobs this week, and I'm not even done with all of them yet. remains to be seen whether i hear back from anyone or not, tho. but i tell you, after this, I'll never complain about having to write a cover letter or do a job interview again--as long as it's in English!!
so anyway, おわびを兼ねて and to let you know i'm not dead, just wanted to put in a quick post. also to change the PV.
Did you think the 70s were dead? Well, you were wrong!
this week is Superfly's song "Hi-Five." (sounds like a band, but it's actually just the girl, as a solo artist).
She also does covers of Eagles and Stones songs, among others.
wow.

visits and stuff

2008-05-01T21:30:00.004+09:00

Golden Week so far has been tons of fun. For those of you who don't know, Golden Week is the end of April/beginning of May, when a bunch of national holidays happen to fall right in a row. It's not exactly a week's worth, but close enough that the government just decided to give everybody the whole week off. (I love Japan!!)
Even though the holidays didn't officially start until Tuesday, IUC was nice enough to give us the whole week off--yaaayy!! So, I've been taking full advantage of the break--not really doing anything special, just lots of hanging out and stuff--going out for yakiniku, watching movies, that sort of thing.
Sunday afternoon I spent with Molly and Misa. We went over to Dakanyama, which is an area just outside Shibuya, with lots of shops and boutiques and stuff. FUN! XD And after, we stopped in Yokohama eki for dinner at the soup curry place.

Tuesday, Jonah (Yalie/with me at HIF) came to visit. He'd just finished up a semester at KCJS and is in Tokyo for a few days before going back to the States, so we met up in Yokohama for a nice lunch in Chinatown, and then walked around for a while. It was lots of fun, we went over to Motomachi, and then through lots of areas of Yamate that I hadn't been in yet. Yamate is the old mansion district above Motomachi, where the rich foreigners lived--and where rich people still live--so the houses were amazing. It feels very not like Japan. There's also an "Italianate Garden" that we walked through, which was absolutely gorgeous. It was really odd to be standing in the middle of all of this Western-feeling architecture, and greenery, and look out over the rest of Yokohama. Not that I don't love Yokohama, but...it just looks different from up there.
Then we went over to the Minato Mirai area, and walked over to Aka Renga just around sunset. The flowers from last time were all gone, but the view was just fantastic. Yappari, Yokohama = <3

***
Also, this week's PV! Sorry, but I just couldn't resist--it's the new News song, "Summer Time."
Seasonally appropriate, and lots of fun to watch.
These boys just thrill my fangirl heart... ^_^

link update

2008-04-26T19:54:00.003+09:00

Finally got around to adding some of my photos to the gallery on the Light Fellowship site (link added to the sidebar).
They're all photos from my Kodakgallery, or that I've posted here on the blog before, so perhaps it's old news--but, have fun looking!
There's also lots of photos posted by the kids at the other Light programs, too.

「何、これ？！」 WTF シリーズ 1

2008-04-25T16:59:00.004+09:00

This post marks the inaugural issue of what I've decided to call my "WTF?! Series" where I'll showcase some of the weirdnesses with which my daily life here in Japan is inundated.
It's not going to be on any particular schedule, just whenever I feel the urge to share the WTF. ^_^

Part 1: Store SignsFirst up, a motorcycle shop that I pass sometimes on my way home from school.
Slap Speed: Speed Equipments and Evil Sounds.
"When fortune smiles, embrace her."

Next, a clothing store in Landmark Plaza. Interesting... I wanna join!

Also in Landmark, two floors above Octopus Army: They took a whole bunch of cuteness and stuck it in a blender! (or...something...)

And finally, a new coffee shop that's just opened in the side street that runs parallel to Isezaki Mall. Cafe emo: espresso and biker's. (even down to the inappropriate apostrophe!). With the light-wood paneling, cheerful colors, and pretty flowers, this place is neither emo, nor biker--leaving aside the fact that emo and bikers don't really go together to begin with... But, they've got a real live motorcycle parked out front, for authenticity!

Last, but not least, is another store sign that I've passed in World Porters more times than I can count. Don't actually have a picture of it, though I promise to post one soon:

Charm
amusing goods of unknown nationality

^_^ completely embodies the Japanese aesthetic: "It's cute, and we neither know nor pretend to care where it came from."

And that concludes the first issue of my WTF Series.
Hope you enjoyed yourself!
\(^_^)/

continuing the theme

2008-04-21T00:21:00.005+09:00

This one's for my Mi-chan! ^_^
continuing on with the theme of AAA, this week's PV is another one of theirs, "Soul Edge Boy"--tho this one's with just the guys in the group.

also...keep your eyes open for the kyudo!
XD

screening party

2008-04-19T14:16:00.002+09:00

Also, the reason we all went to go get tacos in the first place was to pregame for the movie screening! ^_^ Last term, the Friday speaking class--not me, that's when I was taking business Japanese--filmed a movie! It's a murder mystery...sort of? They wrote, filmed, directed, and edited it themselves, so it was rather an interesting production. Lol. But, since the editing and stuff finally got finished, last night we had a screening party up at the big house on the hill, that Ben, Connor, Bridget, and Travis are sharing (cf Thanksgiving).
It was a super party--Amy brought "和風 Rice Krispy treats"--so called because there are no Rice Krispies in Japan, so she used cornflakes instead. But they were really good! And Senda-sensei brought over some fantastic guacamole! XD
Yes, that means the teachers were there, too--Senda, Akizawa, and Kouno. (getting drunk with your teachers is always interesting.....)
Anyway, it was a much-fun party. The movie was a big hit, and we've decided that the next step is to release a subbed version, and make it the next Youtube sensation! ^_^ So, everybody watch out for that!
No pictures in this post, either--I took a few, but sadly certain IUC students who shall remain nameless have forbidden me under pain of death to let them see the light of day, either here or on facebook. So, sorry, no luck this time.

not タコ, but TACOS??

2008-04-19T13:08:00.002+09:00

so, when Ben R came up to Jason and me the other day and said he knew of a good taco place near the Bandobashi shotengai that we should all go to on Friday...I just assumed he meant "tako" octopus. Because, really, this is Japan after all, and while Yokohama is a wonderfully international city, with almost any kind of food that you could hope to imagine....Mexican is still pretty darn thin on the ground--or if it does exist, really just....blech. So I just assumed Ben meant octopus.
So, imagine my surprise when Jason and I arrive at Bandobashi and find ourselves directed towards a hole-in-the-wall bearing the sign "Taco Bob's."
Bridget, Ben, Travis, and Iman were already inside, getting started. It was a teeny tiny place; the arrival of Jason and me pushed our numbers to 6 (not including the owner behind the counter), which filled up the restaurant in the most literal sense--there weren't even enough stools, so Jason had to stand!
Anyway, there were some odd parts--like the fact that for an extra 50 yen you could add "camembert cheese" to your taco--or the fact that the tacos came wrapped in this...pancake...thing....that looked oddly like a crepe. And of course, this being Japan, there was mayonnaise involved as well. BUT, the most important thing is, they actually tasted like real tacos!! The owner was really nice, too. We asked him how he learned to make tacos, to which his answer was: Well, I visited lots of different Mexican restaurants, and just figured "it's something like this." (だいたい、こんな感じ。。。)
LOL. Anyway, they were really yum, and since it's super close by, we promised to come back again.

job stuff--in japanese?!

2008-04-18T00:24:00.004+09:00

sooooooooo tired.....
So, I'm officially looking for a job. And as my 第一歩 in that direction, today I experienced the wonders of the "we're not hiring but we'll talk to you anyway," a.k.a. Informational Interview.
See, even though I'm staying in Japan, I still want to do something related to publishing--although within that I'm pretty much willing to consider anything. Which means newspaper, magazine, foreign rights, translation... you name it, I'm looking.
Today's interview was with the Japan Uni Agency. They rep Simon & Schuster's books to get translated and sold in Japan--and that's how I got in touch with them, was through my old boss at S&S. The "Japanese market is poor," so they're not hiring, but they agreed to talk to me anyway, so I dashed off from school this afternoon and made my way over to Jimbo-cho, a.k.a. the Land of Used Bookstores. It was raining, and I got horribly lost, and managed to wander around for nearly an hour, despite the fact that the building was literally about a block from the station. But, in my defense, quite poorly labeled.
I talked to two women at the agency, Kurioka-san and Nagatsuka-san. Kurioka-san is only a little bit older than me, and just started working at Japan Uni recently, so that's why she had Nagatsuka-san come over too--cause Nagatsuka-san has been with Uni for about 10 years, and so knows more about the business.
So, on to the interview itself--
Kurioka-san was incredibly nice, the sort of person that I feel like I would get along really well with as friends. Nagatsuka-san, on the other hand.... to be fair, I don't think she was trying to be mean, I think she's just one of those dry, ironic personality types--which could be entertaining in a boss, but is absolute MURDER on your nerves in an interview. I mean, I was nervous enough having to speak in Japanese, so it didn't help to have Nagatsuka-san saying things like "It might be better for you to work in America," and "Japan still has lots of gender discrimination, not like America. You might not like it. If you try and work here, you might end up hating Japan."
Some more samples of conversation:
Me: So, what do you like most about your job?
Nagatsuka-san: I don't particularly like my job.
Me: ....oh.
Kurioka-san: Really? You don't?
Nagatsuka-san: No.
Kurioka-san: But, you get to read books and that sort of thing, isn't that fun?
Nagatsuka-san: Not really.
Me: ............
(>_<)
So yes, there were some sufficiently awkward moments--although, I knew from the start that it wasn't a job interview, so it's not as if I feel like I missed out on anything. And don't get me wrong, I did get some useful information from the interview, like about how to get started looking for translation jobs, or the fact that both Cambridge and Oxford University Presses have offices in Japan. (for which last, I totally plan on contacting my old boss at the Yale Press, to see if she has any contacts for me.....) *crosses fingers*
これからも、頑張るぜぇぇぇぇぇぇぇ！！！！！

Hanami...but not

2008-04-13T17:13:00.004+09:00

Molly, Marshall, Ben and I met up again Saturday to go to a party in Yoyogi Park, in Tokyo. Basically the same type of deal as the hanami party, only without the excuse of pretending to be there to look at flowers, since there aren't really many sakura left anymore.
The party was hosted by "Amazon," one of the people we'd met at Satoshi's hanami party last weekend. That's obviously not his real name, but he'd lived in Brazil or somewhere for a while, and so now goes by "Amazon." lol. He's part of a samba-drumming team, so that was the ostensible purpose of the party. Although really, it just ended up as a drinking picnic.
And we weren't the only ones with this idea, either. ^_^ I took these pictures pretty early on in the day, so it was still fairly empty--it got a *lot* busier later on. Amazon and some of his friends broke out the drums and started playing for a good chunk of the party. That's "Amazon" on the right. And yes, he seems to usually dress like that. It got pretty active, too--they were giving drumming lessons, and several people came over to dance. It lasted for a while--until some self-important grandma decided we were being a nuisance and called the equivalent of the park security to come over and hush us up. (we knew it was her, because we saw her gesturing and shaking her finger at the security people after, lol).
Rikako was at the party, too, as were several other people who'd been at hanami last week. Although Satoshi was MIA, off "being an idiot" as Rikako surmised. "Baka" seems to be her favorite way to describe Satoshi (lol).
And of course, true to form, there was a 二次会 afterparty as well, although I didn't go. Had to get up pretty early to get to Yoyogi, plus I stayed up pretty late Friday night cause we had a donuts-hot cocoa-movie party at Felicia's. ^_^
But then, we actually ended up having an "afterparty" of our own, lol. Jeff's old college roommate was visiting, and Jeff wanted to show him Thrash Zone. Of course, Jeff hadn't been there yet himself, and as the place is absolutely impossible to give anyone directions to, Molly, Jason and I went along to show them the way.
Fun!

Lovely + Odd

2008-04-13T16:47:00.006+09:00

It's been raining miserably for the past several days--that chilly, icky kind of rain where the wind is blowing it all over you and your umbrella is completely useless, even when it's not turned inside-out.
But on Friday, it finally decided to be sunny and warm, and I was in heaven! ^_^ Cause it was so nice, Jason and I went to the combini after class and took lunch outside, to sit along the water behind IUC. It was sooooooo nice! XD
View to the right.... View to the left.... Walking home, we went via Aka Renga for a change of pace. We browsed a little bit around the shops inside--browsing only, since (fortunately?) I had forgotten my wallet at home that day. Outside Aka Renga, they were planting a big display of flowers. It smelled fantastic!
Then, we happened upon some sort of pottery fair thing that was starting up in Odori Koen (where I live). This photo only shows a part of it, but there were lots of stalls on both sides of the park, taking up a whole block. Bowls, cups, teapots, chopsticks, wooden dishes...lots of different things. And some of them were just gorgeous.
And, last but oh-most-definitely not least, another stellar example of Odori Koen scenery.
This is just...

...

Priceless.

fruit!

2008-04-07T20:30:00.003+09:00

(didn't want to put this at the bottom of the last post and make it even longer.)

this week's PV!!!
another idol group called AAA, with the song "That's Right."
this is *definitely* a get-you-out-of-bed song! Listen to it in the morning while you're getting ready for the day. ^_^
Not exactly sure what the fruit's all about...but the paint part is cool!

花見

2008-04-07T18:46:00.003+09:00

This past weekend I spent doing....花見 Hanami!!!!! For those of you wondering, hanami is the Japanese tradition of cherry-blossom viewing. Which, of course, is code for "sit out in the park hopefully near some cherry blossoms, and have a big giant party with your friends." The party I went to was (if you remember) the annual bash hosted by Satoshi, who I met at that beer-tasting with Molly and Ben back at the beginning of break. And it really was a big party. It was at a park in Ichigaya, and probably close to a hundred people showed up. I went with Molly, Ben, Marshall, and Jason. Satoshi was there, in full form--black leather pants, orange shirt, bright-pink feather boa, and this sort of blue mesh cowboy-hat thing. Yeah. But it was lots of fun. I saw Rikako and Izumi again (who I'd met with Satoshi the first time), as well as make lots of new friends. And the weather was *perfect!* Here's a photo of some of the people I was hanging out with. The other gaijin, second to the left, is Zel; the one sitting to her right is my friend from before, Rikako; then Yukiko; and me. (I can't remember the name of the woman on the far left--oops. I'm bad with names). The party went on for a while--started at 11, though we got there around noon. The party broke up around 5pm, which is when we left, although Satoshi was taking numbers for an "after-party" at an izakaya nearby. LOL.
One last picture of the flowers! ^_^ Molly and everyone were meeting some other IUC-ers for Indian food and then the first drinking-in-the-park party of the year. But the reason I left was to meet up with a non-IUC friend (*gasp!*) to go to a bar in Jiyugaoka and play darts! XD My friend plays in competitions and stuff, so she was teaching me how to play. Darts became fairly popular in Japan a few years back, so there are actually lots of darts bars around the Tokyo/Yokohama area. It was lots of fun, and I caught on enough that after the first couple times, I wasn't missing the board anymore (lol). We stayed late enough that I missed my train, so my friend let me crash at her place--yay, sleepover!
So...I didn't get home til Sunday afternoon! >_<

today's bit of lovely

2008-03-28T19:45:00.004+09:00

So...in honor of it being Friday (not really, but that's my story) I finally went to go see the Kurosagi movie! XD *happiness* Kurosagi is a j-dorama (duh!) that I watched (c.f. the "Taiyou no Amida" PV, which was the movie's theme song), and seeing as how the ending wasn't very wrap-up-ish, they made a movie sequel. It came out on March 10, but I only got around to seeing it today. (I'm a bad fan, I know) Anyway, it was lots of fun, but I won't go into details here--either you've seen the drama and don't want to read spoilers--or you haven't seen the drama and will have no idea what I'm talking about. But one thing I was pleased with, is the fact that the atmosphere was very different from the drama--in other words, they really worked hard to make it a movie, and not just an extra-long episode of the tv show.
So, since I went to see the movie, it was dark by the time I headed home-- hence today's bit of lovely! i.e. another night view of Landmark/Queen's Mall/the Cosmo Clock ferris wheel, this time seen from Bashamichi. Ooh, shiny!

Also, new PV update. I swear, instead of a "J-pop PV of the week," I could totally turn this into a "J-pop PV that takes place near IUC," and not ever run out of options.
On that note, this week's song is by yet another group that I've started listening to constantly, after just discovering them last week: w-inds, and the song is "Love is the Greatest Thing." I'll admit, the song is a little odd-sounding at first, but it grows on you, and after a couple listens, you'll be dancing to it all day (and if not, pretend that you are so I don't feel so bad). And, on the IUC theme, the skyscrapers that you can see in the back of most of the PV are Landmark Tower and Queen's (seen from the opposite side as the photo above). Oh yeah, and I didn't get the Shrek thing either, at first--but apparently they stuck that footage in cause the lead singer of w-inds voiced one of the characters in the Japanese dub of the movie.

but, it's not Halloween!

2008-03-27T23:09:00.006+09:00

Fun stuff! so, Wed afternoon i stayed late at school--first for my weekly project meeting with Senda-sensei, and then after attempting to do some more of the aforementioned bungaku reading. (which, incidentally, was a resounding failure--i was deathly sleepy and kept nodding off in the middle of sentences). anyway, i packed it in around 4:30 and started to head for home, since Wed is my night for kyudo practice. but, on my way home i got distracted in the plaza between Queen's and Landmark, by a guy who was putting on a fire juggling show! which of course, thanks to YAGS, is forever associated in my mind with Yale and Halloween. ^_^
anyway, he was doing a pretty good job, so i sat down to watch the end of his show (which actually made me about 15 mins late for kyudo...but whatev). The funniest part, though, was that right about that time, it decided to get incredibly windy, so the poor guy's fire kept going out. lol.
and of course, being me, i also took a video!

(the sound in the background is the wind blowing--i told you it was strong!)
Then, he finished up with a bang by juggling while riding an extremely tall unicycle--just getting on it was rather a production. he had to have a guy from the audience come up and hold a big pole that he used to support himself while he climbed onto the thing. i have to say, i was amazed that he managed it at all!
anyway, it was lots of fun, and even though it made me late for kyudo, it also gave me the energy to actually go to kyudo, which was a good thing--i'd been so tired at school that i was actually contemplating skipping

in which things take a turn for the worse

2008-03-27T22:41:00.002+09:00

(WARNING: this is going to be another of those posts in which i am too lazy to capitalize things)

4th term has begun! it's only been a week, so why does spring break seem so long ago? i guess school has that effect on you...? still, there's no afternoons, and only 2 out of my 3 classes are going to involve actual work. well, that last is an assumption--i mean, i still have IJ--we spent T/Th this week doing the last 2 chapters of the keigo book 待遇表現, which was really no work at all, tho it's not really clear what we're going to be doing next in that class. we're having a mini-発表会 next week though, so i have to write some kind of a speech between now and then. (pick a topic... pick a topic....)

Now, onto the hard stuff:
we've moved on to Meiji literature in bungaku, as of this term. (for those of you shaky on your japanese history, that's post-1860, after the collapse of the shogunate). on balance, not that long ago i suppose, but it's long ago enough that everything's written all weird! (T_T);; sort of along the lines of the way Shakespearean-era things use different spelling and stuff like that... it's not all that bad actually, just takes some getting used to. and this was my first time reading anything in that kind of Japanese--but once i got myself broken in, it felt pretty much the same as regular japanese. right now we're working on Natsume Soseki's 夢十夜 "Ten Nights of Dream," which i was actually super happy to get to read. i've read them in english in a j-lit class i took sophomore year at yale, tho that was long enough ago that i didn't remember much other than the fact that i liked them. but, for anyone who's read anything else by Soseki, they're (to my mind at least) very unlike any of his other works.
less fortunately, next up, according to Otake-sensei, is Higuchi Ichiyo and possibly Izumi Kyoka--both of whom are authors that, again, i've read in translation for j-lit classes at Yale, and really enjoyed--but who are apparently a bitch to tackle in the original japanese. Ichiyo especially, according to Otake, has a habit of using a variety of different spellings for her characters' names, within the same story. as well as another equally charming habit of writing single sentences that take up an entire page. i exaggerate not in the least. (ack!) before we even get to start reading her, we have to spend a whole class learning various techniques for "how" to read her works! お楽しみ。。。(please note the sarcasm)

on Friday i have my first 現代小説 "Modern novel" class, so i'll report on that later. the first reading was a Murakami Haruki short story (that i *swear* i've read before....) which was interesting and not too difficult. so hopefully that class stays fun.

桜、咲け！(って、桜木町?!)

2008-03-21T23:08:00.002+09:00

In honor of spring, the newly-warm weather, and the fact that the cherry blossoms are in bloom, this week's PV is
花は桜、君は美し by いきものがかり
"The flowers are cherry blossoms, you are beautiful," by Ikimonogakari.

And where would one film a PV about sakura (cherry blossoms)? Where else but Sakuragi-cho station-- 当然だろう！
To be specific, the plaza outside Sakuragi-cho JR station, between the station and the IUC-bound people-mover.

。。。Don't you love it when it all just fits like that?
High-five! （　＾＾）Y☆Y（＾＾　）

(ちなみに、I can't even *begin* to imagine how they were able to keep the plaza area clear of commuters long enough to film this thing!)

random hilarity

2008-03-20T18:23:00.004+09:00

Meant to post this pic in the Ghibli post, but I forgot. On the way to the museum, we found the funniest thing. In Japan, you really can buy anything from a vending machine.
Including...milk! XD

Ninja Akasaka

2008-03-20T16:01:00.004+09:00

Cause it's Yale spring break, so Stever-sensei, my 3rd year Japanese teacher at Yale, has been in Japan checking out possible language schools and stuff for the Light Fellowship (I think, anyway). But more importantly, she took all of the Tokyo (former) Yalies out to a fantabulous dinner! Along with Stever-sensei, my 1st year Japanese teacher, Nishimura-sensei was there, too, which was a really nice surprise. なつかしいなぁ～ On the student side (well, sort of) was me, Jason, and Jeff from IUC, plus 3 other recent Yale grads who are currently in Tokyo on other programs, or working, or whatever.
The restaurant we went to is called Ninja Akasaka (Akasaka being the area of Tokyo it's in), and 名前どおり、it's a Ninja restaurant! The door is small and fairly unobtrusive; you go through it into a dim room with dark wood paneling that has a reception desk and nothing else. When your party is all gathered, the receptionist calls out, a small door in the wall opens, and a ninja comes out! The ninja leads you through another door, and down a winding, labyrinth-like hall to your table. There's steep steps, little river-things, and a bridge that lowers down from the wall. Then you get to your table!
The staff are all dressed as ninjas, and the menu is on a ninja-scroll looking thing. The food was also really good. It's sort of an a la carte menu, so we ordered a bunch of small things to share. Some highlights:
Sushi boat! This really cool grapefruit thing with a sword stuck through it, and when they pulled the sword out, all this smoke came pouring out. A super-yummy soup that the "ninjas" made at the table. And finally...a "froggy" dessert! かわいい！ We finally had to leave the restaurant cause they needed the table for the next group, but that didn't mean the night was over. ^^ Cause next up was karaoke! Hadn't been in ages, so that was lots of fun. Also, Stever-sensei is amazing! She's got this super strong, low voice, sort of like a Stevie Nicks (sp? lol) or a Carly Simon. Anyway, she and Nishimura-sensei were getting all fired up singing songs they remembered from college and stuff. Then Jeff, Southerner extraordinaire, started up an impromptu marathon of Credence Clearwater Revival songs. lol.
It was fun times! We took the last train home from Shibuya--which, incidentally, only went as far as Yokohama station, so Jason, Jeff and I had to split a cab the rest of the way.

♪tonari no totoro, totoro... ♪

2008-03-19T21:38:00.004+09:00

On Monday, I met up with Molly and her friend from the states to go the the Studio Ghibli Museum in Mitaka! For those of you who don't know, Studio Ghibli = Miyazaki Hayao (i.e. Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, Totoro...well, you get the picture).
The museum was really cool! It's in the middle of a park, so it's a very pretty area. When you walk up to the building, there's a cute little Totoro "receptionist" area. And a sign that says "The real receptionist is that way -->" ^_^ The building itself is really neat, too, like something straight out of a Miyazaki movie, lol. Here's the view from the roof! Where you can also see...a replica of the giant robot dude from Laputa! (or "Castle in the Sky," in English). Life-size! (kind of a funny picture of me, tho...oh well).
You're not allowed to take photos inside the museum, but it was really interesting. First, they have a screening room where they show short movies that you can only see at the Ghibli Museum. We saw a really cute one about a water-spider making friends with another water-spider--it was very Miyazaki, too cute for words. ^_^
Then there was a really cool exhibit about the history of animation---with displays about zoeotrope, and these 3-D plexiglass boxes, and this really neat stop-motion machine thing, that I don't really know how to describe, but it was *amazing.*
Then, upstairs there was a giant stuffed Neko-bus for the little kids to play in, and a whole series of rooms of Miyazaki's drawings, and cels from the films, and things like that.
At any rate, it was TONS of fun! ^_^

kyudo, prettiness

2008-03-15T20:27:00.004+09:00

today was absolutely the Best. Weather. Ever.
*kyaa!*
we had a massive thunderstorm last night (久しぶり！) and when I woke up this morning, it was 60, blue skies, and brilliant. which was ちょうどいい as far as I was concerned, because today was my kyudo club's monthly tournament. it was seriously the first time in months that I've gone to kyudo and not frozen my ass off. it made for a nice change--and was just in time, too, since I've worn holes in the soles of my one pair of tabi that are large enough to wear an extra pair of socks under, and I had to wear my other pair today.
On my way home, I took some pics of the budokan, to celebrate springtime. I think I mentioned that the budokan is right next to Kishine Park, which makes it really pretty. That's actually the kyudojo area that you can see there, on the right side. The lake thing, with the grass growing in it and stuff, sort of reminds me of the marshes on the Outer Banks. Well, to me anyway. As for the tournament itself, I'd say middling? Average performance I guess. Today, we shot 10 arrows in the individual competition: 2 shinsa-style; 4 practice style; 4 standing (risshya). I missed both my first two sets, but then I hit 2 out of my 4 arrows in the Risshya at the end, so that made me kind of happy. And a few of my misses weren't that far off. Of course, a few of my misses were also *quite* far off. All in all I felt like I had kind of an average-to-off day.
Then came the group competition, which is done like a brackets tournament. In the first round, we tied with the other group (no thanks to me), and did another tie-breaker round shooting one arrow each. Which we tied again. ;-P So they then decided to determine the winner based on a game of janken (rock-paper-scissors). Which we won. (yay!)
Of course, we then promptly lost the second round, 7 hits to 2. (>_<)
Ouch.
But the day wasn't a total loss--I did win a 特別賞 "special prize"--remember, the kind that I won before? Which I have since discovered are awarded based on a random lottery...
Oh well. A prize is a prize, right?
;-D

and then there was Sunday

2008-03-12T13:05:00.004+09:00

Of course, since Sunday, I've basically become a slug--but there are those kinds of vacations, too.
On Sunday, Molly and I heard from Ben A about a microbrew tasting going on at a bar out past Aobadai (read: kind of far). I don't know a bit about beer, and I'm kind of a wimp when it comes to the darker ones, but Molly and Ben are チョウ詳しい. Anyway, it was lots of fun.They had a variety of different beers from this one label, Green Flash. Basically, you paid 3000 yen, and got a glass and 6 beer tickets, which you could redeem for a glass each. 6 tickets, 6 beers, so the idea was to try one of each, but you could also get doubles on things if you wanted. I tried everything except the Belgian Dark Ale, cause like I said, I'm a wimp about dark beer. Although I did end up really liking the Barleywine, which despite being dark was super yum.And the bar itself had a really neat atmosphere. Totally in the middle of this residential area, not where you'd expect a bar to be, and very tiny. We also made some friends--Satoshi, Rikako, and Izumi. Ben just started talking to them, and the next thing we knew, we were headed to Kabuki-cho in Tokyo to go to Satoshi's "favorite restaurant" for dinner. And it was pretty good, despite the rather...sketchy atmosphere. Kabuki-cho is known as Tokyo's red-light district, and the restaurant we went to was in a building full of host/hostess clubs, and snack bars. Rikako and Izumi were getting kind of nervous, lol, but as Satoshi assured us, the place turned out to be really good. We all exchanged contact info, and we snagged an invite to Satoshi's annual Hanami (Flower-Viewing) party in April, which apparently (according to Satoshi at least) is quite the event. ^^
All in all, it was quite the day.

Oh, new PV as well--"Monochrome," by Bennie K, who are a female pop/rap kind of duo. I hear they actually met up while studying in L.A., which explains why their English is better than your average Japanese performer. lol.
I like this song a lot.

update

2008-03-11T22:12:00.000+09:00

kay, so the photos are all uploaded onto my kodakgallery.
お楽しみ！

oh, i forgot

2008-03-11T13:03:00.004+09:00

When we were at Osanbashi, there was this cruise pulling out, or something. I really have no idea what was going on. All I know is when we got there, there was a huge ship docked, and all the people on it were standing at the railing throwing colored paper streamers to the people standing on the Osanbashi side. I took tons of pictures of the streamers and stuff, and also whipped out my small camera to catch a video of the ship leaving the dock.

you wanted photos...

2008-03-10T17:13:00.006+09:00

So Saturday (thank you, Molly!) was incredibly fun. Molly found out, through Flickr, about a Yokohama photo tour thing. It's a group of people who all live in the Yokohama area; we all met up Saturday morning at Yokohama station and spent the day walking around taking pictures. And I mean the whole day. We met up at 1pm, and Molly and I peaced out around sundown. We walked from Yokohama station, through Tobu and over to Noge-cho, past Pacifico and Minato Mirai, Aka-Renga, and finally over to Yamashita Koen and Osanbashi. It was a lot of fun, but my feet were killing me.
The group turned out to be a really interesting mix of people, too. Aside from me and Molly, there were about 8 other 30/40-something Japanese, a French woman who's been living in Japan for the past 6 years (yet speaks barely any Japanese), and a Korean woman who was actually just visiting Japan for the weekend, and wanted to take some pictures.
I'm currently in the process of uploading all the photos to my Kodakgallery --it takes *forever*, I took about 300 photos! But I'm sticking a few into the post here, also a video! ^_^
First, we found some cherry blossoms! It's still a little early for them, so they're not out everywhere, but they were beautiful!
This is part of the temple over in Noge-cho, which I'd never been to before. I loved the pinwheels. Took lots of pictures of them! ^_^
Oh, and remember Jack Cafe that I went to last week for the triple-birthday? Well, we walked past it on the way to Osanbashi, so I snapped a picture of it. I really want to go back!
Lastly, view of the Minato Mirai skyline at sunset, from Osanbashi. You can see Pacifico, Landmark, and the Aka Renga.

3rd term thoughts

2008-03-10T15:40:00.002+09:00

The nightmare is over!
Lol.
Well, not a nightmare, exactly, but 3rd term has been pretty draining. After 4 months of having the same classes every day, the switched-up schedule took some getting used to. Sometimes literature, sometimes pop culture..and IJ thrown into the mix twice a week. IJ which, more often than not, ended up getting the short end of the stick, homework-wise. Oops.
The hardest part overall was definitely the lit class. We've been going at a pretty fast clip, and along with each short story, we also read a related scholarly article, and wrote our own essay. Some of the stories were longer and harder than others; I actually think the first story we read, the Endo Shusaku one, was the easiest even though it was the longest (and, I think, the oldest). Some of the stories I liked, and a couple of them made me want to bang my head against the wall.

I had my end-of-term interview with Ari-sensei on Friday morning. As expected, she talked about how I need to work on upping my kanji skills over the next term, and introducing some more formal words into my vocabulary. Which is something I've been sort of self-conscious about too, mostly because I feel like since most of the other kids here are grad students and stuff, they're all coming from a background of lots of reading in Japanese for their coursework. So I worry sometimes that I'm kind of behind in that sense. So, that's my goal for 4th term! ;-)
Oh, and I made the mistake of telling Ari-sensei that I didn't really have any plans over break--which got me stuck with a whole mess of homework that I'm now expected to do over break. Joy! *note sarcasm*
I should've taken a page out of Molly's book. When Otake-sensei asked if she had any plans over break, Molly was like "Yes, I have a friend coming. The whole time. Lots of traveling. No time for homework. Sorry. Two weeks. Whole time. Yup."
Wish I'd done that! >_<

It's break!

2008-03-10T15:20:00.003+09:00

So, there's every possibility that my Spring Break will turn into a veg-fest eventually, but it has definitely not been lacking in excitement so far.
Thursday after class I went with Jason, Jeff, Molly, and Misa to go see "The Golden Compass," which I had been wanting to see for a while (sorry Mom!). It was pretty good. Not as good as the book, obviously. There were definitely some problems, some places where the movie felt kind of jerky, or like it moved too quickly. And that ending! (if you've read the books, you know what I'm talking about) But there were also several moments that really resonated with the book. Seeing the movie, though, really made me want to read the books again! (-_-) But I don't have them with me *sigh*
Anyway.

新曲

2008-03-04T20:38:00.003+09:00

This week's PV. I was intending to put up a different one, but then I discovered that the PV for Kanjani8's new single (drops 3.12) was on youtube, so I couldn't resist!
^_^
The song is called ワッハッハ "Wa-ha-ha." Yes, as in the sound of laughing.
Witness the dorks in action! (but the dorkiness is why we love them)
Kanjani 8 cleans a bathroom, Yoko sets his hair on fire, and Ohkura plays Whack-a-Mole on Yasu's head.

i get to leave when?

2008-03-04T19:29:00.004+09:00

I have to say, I am completely on board for this whole no afternoon class thing. Monday, when I went to leave school at 12:30 in the afternoon, I felt like I was doing something wrong, and kept half-expecting one of the sensei to come chasing after me to bring me back.
;-P
I'm suddenly finding myself with all this free time on my hands that I don't exactly know what to do with. The homework load has noticeably lightened. And I know part of that is due to this being the last week before break, and that it will be increased later once the project work gets going, but for now...I'm enjoying life. ^_^
Also, the weather lately has been gorgeous, and only slightly chilly, so I've been in *such* a good mood.

project work

2008-02-29T21:53:00.003+09:00

since I talked about how we went to the library for a project work research orientation I spose I should also mention a little bit about what I've decided to do my project on.
I felt a lot better about it after talking to Ari-sensei last week. I was thinking the project had to be actually researching something, you know, like "the economic policies of the Taisho era" or something like that. but it turns out that, according to Ari-sensei, the majority of students just come in with something along the lines of "I want to read this book in Japanese." and then find something sort of similar to present about at the end.
so! my topic's not entirely hammered out yet, but I've decided to do something about translation. if possible, I would love to be able to write about, I guess you could call it "theories of subtitle translation"...? some of the issues would be common to regular translation, but what I really want to examine for example (in the case of Japanese to English), is the balance between conveying Japanese culture and making things understandable to someone coming from an American cultural background. How best to translate certain expressions, pop culture references, things like that. do you translate them literally and let the viewer fend for themselves? add some sort of explanatory note? change the reference into one from American culture that has a similar meaning?
Questions like that are really interesting to me.

Oh, and-- wonderful news about my advisor, too! I had just assumed that the project advisor would be the same as our regular advisor (i.e. Ari-sensei for me). but then the other day Otake-sensei came up to me before class asking about when we should schedule my weekly project work meeting, and I got really confused, until I realized that my project advisor wouldn't necessarily be Ari-sensei. and then I got kind of worried that it might be Otake-sensei. which wouldn't be bad, it's not as if I dislike her--it's just that I've had very little interaction with her, and she's known to be one of the stricter sensei at IUC.
but then the other day they posted the assignments, and I have Senda-sensei! YAAAAYYY!!!!
everybody is really jealous of me! ^_^ (especially Jason, who has "Kawasaki-sensei" as an advisor--someone that none of us have ever heard of, or have any recollection of ever seeing. lol)
so, all in all, i'm getting really excited about this whole project thing!
;-D

Field trip!

2008-02-29T21:18:00.002+09:00

this week was actually really fun, because on Thursday we went on a field trip! well, sort of anyway. at any rate, it meant no class. of course--as is invariably the case--"no class" does not equal "sleep in," as we had to meet at the Motomachi/Chukagai station at 9:15 (normally the time I leave to go to school).
first we went to the 文学館 (Literature...Museum? yet another addition to the list of words I understand the meaning of, but only in Japanese). Which was...meh. They had exhibits about different authors, showing their drafts, or early editions of their work, stuff like that. It was ok.
we stopped in Chinatown for lunch, and that was REALLY yum. also, i discovered both a niku-man place that sells veggie-man too, AND a street of restaurants with meals actually under $10. whee! now i just have to remember how to get there.... which is more of a problem than it sounds, because Chinatown is crazy confusing. it's stuck right in the middle of Yokohama, but once you enter the gate, the streets get all windy, and all go off in different directions from the streets outside. so i invariably get lost, and wind up in the complete opposite direction from where i thought i was heading.
After lunch, we went to...the LIBRARY! hehe. which is a lot more fun than it sounds. the Yokohama central library is enormous. we went to get us all library cards made, and for sort of a research orientation for our project work. i found a lot of good books--and i discovered the library's amazing magazine selection. they have several different Japanese trade magazines about publishing and editorial, which was sooooo cool to find. i'm definitely going to start checking those out. but best of all, they also get Publisher's Weekly! so now i can start reading it again! (i had been debating buying myself an online subscripton, despite the expense, but now i don't have to!)
so, all in all it was a really fun day. although, as field trips always do, it turned out to be actually longer than a regular school day.

Jack & Thrash

2008-02-29T20:02:00.003+09:00

That sounds like it ought to be the name of some kind of band.
Nevertheless, last weekend! Jack Cafe, for the 3人 joint birthday party was lots of fun. turns out Jack Cafe is this 50s-style American hamburger joint. or, the Japanese conception of what a 50s-style American burger joint would be like. there were a lot of us, so Jeff just arranged a bunch of appetizers and stuff, for a flat fee. Hence, no burgers, but the rest of the food was surprisingly good. they served chips with actual guacamole, which totally made my day--and the fries were really good, too. but just in case anyone started to forget we were in Japan, there were about 20 jars of mayonnaise stacked on the counter.
なるほど。
then Saturday was 久しぶりのThrash Zone (yay!). the place was really full, so we ended up standing down near the end of the bar, but that was ok. It's always a really neat crowd in there--lots of people who seem like regulars and friends of the bartender, and very relaxed. Misa was adorable, though. she was totally staking out the tv, waiting for the end of whatever music dvd they were playing, because the instant it ended, she jumps in with "So what DVD are you playing next?" and the bartender, a man who clearly knows a hint when it hits him over the head, goes "Did you want to pick something?" to which Misa replies "AC/DC!!" and points at the shelf, to the dvd she's clearly been eyeing since we arrived.
LOL.
anyway, it was fun times as usual. b(^_^)d

we made a movie!

2008-02-26T12:23:00.004+09:00

As promised, here's the short movie we made in Business Japanese, "A Day in the Life of a New Employee". Hope everyone enjoys the embarrassment as much as we did making it. ;-P

Cast
Sarah: Outa (Japan Commerce Co, Sales Dept.) / Receptionist / Suzuki-san
Katy: New Employee
Misa: Itou (Sun Commerce, Sales Dept.)
Sean: Tanaka-san / Nomura-san / Receptionist
Staff
Director: Ari-sensei

Scene 1: First day on the job
Scene 2: Telephoning Japan Commerce Co.
Scene 3: At the receptionist for Japan Commerce
Scene 4: In the reception room
Scene 5: Exchanging business cards, Take 2 (take 1 was better...)
Scene 6: Ending the business meeting
Scene 7: Leaving the company
Scene 8: At the receptionist
Credits!

on the way out

2008-02-23T19:43:00.002+09:00

So, last night at Jack Cafe was lots of fun. About to head out to Thrash Zone right now, tho, so I'll write a more detailed update on the weekend's events later.
This is just to give a shout out, and also because I'm updating the video.
This week is a sort of alt-rock style band that I've recently come to like a lot, called Kelun. They just made their major-label debut, and this is their first song, called "Signal." I like the album a lot. There's another song of their's, "Heartbeat," on the music player I added over there in the new left column.
<---

love,
~sarah

weekend!

2008-02-22T18:51:00.004+09:00

For the past couple weeks I've been hearing, "So, what are you and your friends doing this weekend? You're not going anywhere? Just staying at home? Well, you and your friends sure have been boring lately."
So, Mom, this is for you. I'm actually going to get out and do some things this weekend.
Tonight (I have to leave in about 10 minutes, actually), I'm going to a joint birthday party for Jeff, Andre, and Aragorn, who all have birthdays within the next week or so. There's a bunch of IUC-ers coming, so from what I understand, they basically rented out this place, Jack's Cafe, for a flat rate for about 2 hours. There'll be appetizers and drinks, and lots of people, so I'm looking forward to that.
Then, tomorrow night, I have plans to go with Molly, Jason, and Misa to....Thrash! I'm very much looking forward to this, as I haven't been to Thrash since...the night before I flew home for Christmas. Which is another story. Lol. Molly actually went back there with Andre on Christmas eve, but I don't think she's been back since. Wonder if the bartender will remember us? ;-P I think probably. I mean, it's not exactly a gaijin-trap, and I'd bet we're the only group that comes barging in there on a regular basis.
The rest of the weekend will probably be consumed by homework, as we've got rather a lot at the moment, especially in bungaku.
Oh! Speaking of which, business japanese. We've been doing these practical, work-related conversations, that sort of continue on with the same characters, &c. And last week we Ari-sensei had us string them all together and film them. Today in class we watched the video, which was sufficiently embarrassing for all involved. Lol. But Ari-sensei has promised to post it to the IUC server, so as soon as she does, I'll figure out some way to upload it here for all to see.
So, お楽しみして下さい、ねぇ～

do i rock or what?

2008-02-22T18:28:00.003+09:00

You might have noticed, but there's some newness on the blog--links list, a music player (!) and a new 3-column layout. ^_^ (And if you didn't notice all that, then I find myself insulted).
I'd been wanting to have a sidebar on the left for a while now, but blogger doesn't offer a 3-column template, so I thought I was stuck. I found out that you can make a 3rd column, but it involves changing the HTML code and a bunch of--for me--complicated programming-esque stuff that I have absolutely no idea how to do. Fortunately, after a bit of searching, I came across an extremely dummy-friendly site that had instructions more at my level, i.e. "here's the code. copy and paste it into the box." ^^ Of course, it was slightly more complicated than that--involved some actual *gasp!* typing on my part--but eventually I was able to get it right.
Along the way, I came across some other code that lets you add a music player with mp3 files from your own computer. And I thought, why not.
You can't upload a whole ton of songs on the player, so I chose a nice representative selection of what I've been listening to lately. Some of the songs you might recognize from past videos, and some are new. So now, in addition to the music videos, there are some nice j-pop songs to play in the background, or even to leave on while browsing other pages.
The links list is fairly self-explanatory, so I'll leave that as is. I'll be adding more links whenever I find something I want to share, so look forward to that!

good things come in...4s?

2008-02-15T21:28:00.004+09:00

Re: the fact that that whole "3rd term is easier" thing turned out to be a big fat lie. The other day after morning class (cutting into my lunchtime--how dare they?!) we had an orientation for 4th term. I kind of thought that it was supposed to be the same as 3rd, but apparently not.

First: the Good News!
Up until now, we've gotten to experience the pleasure of no-afternoon-class Wednesdays. Once a week, every week. And I thought that was pretty good. But it turns out, in 4th term, we have NO afternoon class! XD
My current M-Th morning class (literature) will continue into next semester, as does the Tues/Wed IJ grammar class. That one becomes 上級日本語 High-Level Japanese. My current Fri morning class, Business Japanese, ends after this term, and gets replaced by a new class. The choices are Speaking, Listening, Writing, 日本文化論 Japanese Cultural Theory (something like that, anyway), or 現代小説 Modern Fiction.
I haven't decided what I'm going to pick yet. I mean, the obvious choice would be the Modern Fiction class, as it's about "the short stories of current, widely-read authors." But, on the other hand, the Culture class sounds pretty interesting, too (Ari-sensei's heading it up). Also, taking two lit classes at the same time is definitely nothing to sneeze at. Or I could pick the listening class, for a bit of a break. Since my listening skills are definitely the best of the bunch (and by bunch, I mean the bunch of my other skills, or lack thereof), it would make for a bit of a slack class.
I dunno, I'll talk to Ari-sensei about it, but I'll probably end up going with the other lit class. From a future-use point of view, it's definitely the best choice. I'm just a little nervous about the workload, hence putting off the inevitable.

Next: the Bad News
Well, not exactly bad news, but... The reason we have no afternoon classes is because, during 4th term, we're supposed to be spending the afternoons doing dun dun dun...Project Work! Theoretically, at least. (Flashbacks to HIF, anyone?)
I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm sure the project will be rewarding, and interesting, full of fun facts to know and tell. It's just...I have no idea what to do my project on! Nothing. Complete blank. Worse, a void. I mean, I know there are lots of things I'm interested in--Japanese culture, fiction, publishing, dramas... I'm just not sure how to get a research topic out of that. You know?
Aaannndd...we're supposed to turn in a little sheet thingy outlining our project proposal "as detailed as possible." By noon Monday, according to the paper. (A fact which I just now realized. Eek) I guess I'll have to shoot an email to Ari-sensei over the weekend, see if she can meet me before class Monday--or before lunch, assuming I can get an extension past the noon deadline. lol.

So, anyway, that's the skinny on 4th term. As far as we know, at least. ^.^
As we've seen, the good folks here at IUC sure do like to shake things up.

monday!

2008-02-14T00:03:00.003+09:00

Then, I got my day off for real. Thank goodness it was a 3-day weekend, Saturday and Sunday were so busy. Had quite a bit of homework to do, but I did manage to get some fun in on Monday, too. I went with Misa, Jason, Molly, and Bridget to see Sweeney Todd, since the movie finally opened here in Japan. I really liked it, actually. It was definitely just as heavy on the blood as I'd heard, but I thought it was a well-done movie. I'd never seen the musical, thought I was familiar with the story and some of the songs. Lol, especially that "nothing's gonna harm you..." song, which I'd heard performed several times before, but always as a love song. Rather a different impression to see it in it's real context... Hmm.

Aaannnd.... before the movie, they showed a preview for the Kurosagi movie!! XD Kurosagi is a drama that I really like, and since it had a rather unsatisfactory ending (i.e. not really ended at all) they made a movie of it! Whee! I've been waiting for this! The movie opens in March. And it was so cool to get to see the preview in a real movie theater! (yes, I'm a dork. freely admitted)

On that note, this week's video is the new single by News, 太陽のナミダ "Taiyou no Namida" (Tears of the Sun). It's the theme song for the Kurosagi movie, mainly cause the star of the movie is Yamashita Tomohisa, who's a member of News (the one in the scarf).
So, enjoy!

また、ねぇ！

kyudo test!

2008-02-13T22:46:00.003+09:00

Sunday, I took the kyudo 審査 test (shinsa), for 初段shodan, in other words 1st dan. I was really nervous, and it was a looooong day. The test was at the budokan where I usually practice, which I was happy about--sort of a home dojo advantage, if you will. At any rate, it was nice to not have to be all nervous in a new place, on top of everything else.
I had to get over to the budokan by 9am, so the plan was to wake up at about 7 to have time for some coffee and breakfast, hit up the ATM, grab a bento (cause sensei said I should bring one), and get to the budokan before 9 to beat the check-in rush.
As I said, that was the plan. What actually happened was that I woke up at 8 (the time I'd planned to *leave* the apartment originally), frantically threw on some clothes, had no time for coffee, grabbed my stuff, and ran out the door. To find that the ATM was inexplicably closed. Grabbed some food (and coffee) from the combini, and still managed to make it to the budokan right at 9am. A feat of which I am actually quite proud.
Of course, getting to the budokan at 9am was just to check in. The actual testing is done by number. And I was #386. Out of 387. Suffice it to say, I had a sizeable wait. Shodan is a fairly beginner rank, so it was basically me...and 300 high school students. They're, well, I'll stick with energetic.
I wasn't actually scheduled to begin my testing until 2pm. But that was the written part, so it gave me some time to study.
See, the kyudo exam for rank has both a shooting part (obviously) and a written test. At shodan level, the written is fairly simple, but given my severe lack of studying and the *small* fact that the test was in Japanese (of course), and sans dictionary, I was a little nervous. It turned out all right, though. The main essay question--thank goodness!--was basically, "what good effects kyudo has had on your daily life," that sort of thing. Basically the same sort of thing I've been writing for speeches and compositions for class all year. And I have to admit, it was pretty gratifying to see the sort of taken-aback look on the test proctor's face when little old gaijin me handed in a full page of Japanese. ^_^ lol
Then, the shooting part, which I was nervous about, a little bit, but mostly just COLD. I missed both my arrows, but the shots were all right. I guess it must have been good enough, cause I PASSED!!! ^_^
And here's the picture to prove it! They posted the results by stamping 合格 (pass) or 不合格 (didn't pass) above everybody's names. I'm the second from the left column--second to last, like I said. I took a picture of it with my cell phone. Cause, well, all the high-schoolers were doing it, so it seemed like the thing to do. hehe.

from the beginning

2008-02-13T21:50:00.002+09:00

Apologies for the lack of updates, it's been kind of busy around here, 3-day weekend notwithstanding. But, in exchange, now you get a whole bunch all at once! (here you go, mom)
So, I was all prepared for a boring Friday night--snuggled up in my room watching dramas. Which is what I was doing, until I got an aim from Jason, at midnight: "Felicia wants to hang out, you coming?" Honestly, going out at midnight like that, it felt almost like being back at Yale again. So we met up with Felicia and went over to her room, in Toriumi Haimu, which is a building that several IUC-ers live in. Despite the fact that it's *really* close to me, it was the first time I'd been over there. And I was sufficiently jealous. Felicia's room used to be a double (her roommate moved out) and it's huge! Especially compared to my little half-a-shoebox. Of course, it was pretty cold--the Haimu has no central heating, and about as much insulation as your average Japanese building--which is to say it's barely distinguishable from the outside temperatures. Still, she has multiple rooms, including a dining table and a real kitchen, with a sink, and counter, and a real size fridge and everything! Can you tell I'm jealous?
(^_^)
We ended up staying at Felicia's until around 4am, hanging out. We caught Jeff, who lives down the hall, on his way back home, so he came over too. Lots of fun, tho the 4am part was a little rough the next day, seeing as I went to kyudo practice all afternoon, though fortunately not until noon, so it wasn't too bad. Usually I tend to skip the weekend practices--sheer laziness, I admit. But I had to go to the one on Saturday because....
Sunday I took the kyudo test! XD

And more about that in the next post!

the snow continues

2008-02-07T19:57:00.000+09:00

Rather frustrating, actually. We've been having a lot of snow lately. Well, in a manner of speaking. For example, last night it snowed--lightly, granted, but continuously--for several hours straight. Which was all well and good, it was very pretty to watch while I was freezing my butt off in the dojo at kyudo last night. But the weather lately has been stuck in that bimyou territory where it's cold enough to snow, but still above freezing, so none of it sticks. Which, all in all, makes me feel kind of cheated.
Like I said, I was watching the snow from kyudo last night. Which meant I got home pretty late, and stayed up even later finishing that stupid essay for lit class. zzzz........
So now I'm pretty tired. Oh, and speaking of the essay, remember how I was complaining about the fact that the teachers decided to leave the length "up to us"? Well, it turns out the other lit class actually got a page range! Why them and not us? *pouts* But according to Ben, they were told 1-2 pages, and mine came in at about a page and a half, so that makes me feel somewhat better. I'd been afraid that it was a little short. I totally sent it right off as soon as it was finished last night, tho, I was so tired. I didn't even proofread it. *gulp* (almost like being back in college again...)
Today in class was pretty sad, too. In lit this morning I was barely functioning, and to top it all off, everybody was out (sick or... just out) so our normally 6 person class was reduced to just me and Misa. Eek. Well, Amy L showed up for about half an hour--she came in late, and then went home during the mid-morning break (why come at all then......?). But that hardly counts. And of course, during afternoon class I was in the throes of depression due to UNC's miserable loss to Duke. I was frantically checking the score during breaks, then parked myself in front of the computer during lunch, refreshing the Yahoo sports scores page every 2 minutes until the game was over.
....I guess Senda-sensei will be happy.

cause i've still got a speech to write...

2008-02-04T21:21:00.000+09:00

but i realized that i haven't updated a blog posting lately (a real one, anyway) and that needs to be done!
absolutely nothing to do with the fact that i'm drawing a complete blank on what to write my speech about... nothing at all. nope. (too much protesting?)
also am realizing that recent posts have been horribly lacking in photos, too. whoops. haven't really done anything photo-worthy lately, so...sorry. i'll try to remedy that soon, and take some pics of, well, something.

on to the past week--on the bungaku front, we finished up our first short story. now the homework is that we're all supposed to write our own critical essay about the story (which we'll be doing for all of them from now on). and the length is "up to us." i HATE it when they do that! i mean, "up to you"--what does that mean?! does that mean 1-2 pages? 3-4? gah! whatever. i do actually have things to say about this story, so that's something i suppose.
pop culture class is also still fun. we're in our movie unit now. we got to watch "Shall We Dance"--the amazing Japanese version (DVD of which i own), as well as the embarrassing Richard Gere + J-Lo American remake--and compare the two. that was friday, then today we discussed Miyazaki's "Spirited Away," one of my FAVORITE movies. so even though i'd seen it a million times before, i rewatched it over the weekend as "homework." hehe. god, i love this class.
friday afternoon, we also had a screening of "Battle Royale," cause we'll be discussing that in a few days. it's a super famous movie, and i'd always heard of it as one of those must-see films. and it was, cinematically speaking, very good, i thought. but, it was seriously the most disturbing movie i've seen in recent memory, if not ever. it's based on a book that caused a huge controversy (as did the movie). the premise of the story is that Japan has gone to the dogs, so they decide to pass the "battle royale act," which means they randomly select one class of 9th-graders, send them to a deserted island for 3 days, and make them kill each other off until there's only one left standing. (as incentive, if there's more than one person left alive at the end of the 3 days, then everybody dies)
....you can see where the controversy comes in. like i said, it was a really interesting movie from the perspective of social commentary, and sort of getting inside the kids' heads, seeing what makes people kill each other, and how they all deal with the stress and everything. but, when it was all over, we all felt pretty shell-shocked.
i find myself torn between wanting to see the movie again, with subtitles---and *never* wanting to see the movie again.

let's see, what else...oh yeah, business japanese is going pretty well too. i only have it once a week (fri mornings), which makes it kind of a nice, low-prep class. i.e. we do useful things *in* class, and there's lots of conversation practice and things that i think are helpful, but there's not a whole lot of outside-class work. which is really a good thing, because nobody really has the time to do much prep for such a relatively minor class, on top of everything else. and i think the teachers realize that. altho maybe it's a different story in the other fri morning classes (i.e. reading, speaking, writing classes respectively). but i'm happy with my situation.

ok, wow, this post got long. so i guess i'll wrap up now.
oh! but, it snowed yesterday!! ^_^ a sunday, so as far as potential vacation days goes, it was a waste of perfectly good snow as far as i'm concerned. but it was certainly pretty while it lasted.

eek, almost 10pm. ok, i spose i'll suck it up now, and go and try to write my speech. that's seriously the hardest part of all this--trying to figure out *what* to write about. after a while, you run out of topics...
ok, bye for real now. and i promise to try and include some pictures next time!

slight change of pace...

2008-02-04T21:09:00.000+09:00

new video!
PV is "Lips," by KAT-TUN.

this is one of the currently most popular boy bands in Japan at the moment, and their latest single.
and, just to clarify, this is a boy band that I *don't* actually like--except for sheer entertainment value, by which I mean the fact that they are utterly ridiculous and take themselves *waaaayy* too seriously.
cause--I mean, really! watching this video, it's hard not to cringe. ;-P

so enjoy the horror that is kat-tun (even the name's not original--it's just their initials. hope nobody drops out ever...)
and anyway, it's worth it just to see Koki (as always) trying to be gangsta, Junno looking like something out of Final Fantasy, and androgynous Kame practically making out with the mic. *sigh* oh dear...

at any rate, it's an epic example of japanese boy-band fashion. lol.

brushes with fame

2008-01-30T16:11:00.000+09:00

I. LOVE. YOKOHAMA.

hehe. sorry, just have to share my insane excitement right now!
They were shooting a tv commercial in Queen's Square this morning! Now, Queen's Square being what it is, this is nothing new. There have been several times coming to and from school where things like that have been going on.
What makes today special, is that a) they were shooting on the bridge to IUC so we walked right by, practically through the shoot
b) they were doing a take right as we walked by, so I got to see everything
c) it was Oguri Shun!!!!!!!!!

yes, I am a total J-dorama fangirl, so getting to see Hanazawa Rui live and in person, not 10 feet from me, is enough to keep me excited for WEEKS. it was really sad, tho, that no one else knew who he was, and so failed to understand the depths of my excitement.
my only regret is that i didn't think to grab my cell phone and try to snap a picture--for which lapse I am *kicking* myself. kicking myself.
guess i'm not as japan-socialized as i could be, yet.

also...

2008-01-25T18:47:00.001+09:00

i am sick.

well, not so much anymore, i've been feeling a TON better today. but thursday was absolutely the *worst*
i had the most awful headache all day, i swear it felt like someone was banging a sledgehammer inside my head for 24 hours straight. and i'm pretty sure i had a fever, too. but like i said, today was much better, the headache went away so it's just a cold now.
here's hoping that i'm better for real, and this isn't just a temporary reprieve.

other than that, not a whole lot happened this week. obvi, i missed thurs and fri class. and before that was a fairly average week. i'm trying to remember....yeah, nothing much happened. sorry, i'm still a little out of it.

old-school fun

2008-01-25T18:43:00.000+09:00

this week's video is:
磯貝サイモン　　初恋に捧ぐ歌
Isogai Simon, "Song Dedicated to First Love"

or something like that. my best translation at any rate.

it's not an old video, but for some reason it has a kind of old-school feel to me.
at any rate, i just think it's a fun video. and Simon's a cutie ^^

初夢: dreaming of... (日本語?!?!)

2008-01-22T21:37:00.000+09:00

I think I dreamed in Japanese last night!
Well, I don't remember too much, only the bits that happened right before I woke up. But the dream was me traveling or something, like after IUC lets out. And I was in some kind of cafe, or maybe a ryokan where I was staying, or something like that--and I was talking to the people who owned it, and speaking Japanese to them, cause of course it being Japan, they were Japanese.
...so it wasn't like a random dream where I just happened to be speaking Japanese for no reason, I was speaking Japanese cause it was me, in Japan, talking to Japanese people.
Does that still count? I dunno. But at any rate, when I woke up, it was a really weird feeling--like "...hey wait a minute... that was japanese!"

so yay me!

b(^>^)d

reflections--first week back

2008-01-18T20:38:00.000+09:00

soooooo tired!
so, it wasn't even a real week (had monday off) but i'm still pretty tired. it's tough getting back into the swing of classes and things after being on break for so long (i say "so long," but it flew by)
like i said in the last post, it seems like this term is going to be a pretty heavy workload, but i am also really excited about all my classes. i have to get back into the whole college-like "not having the same classes every day" mindset, tho. lol. it's actually kind of hard, after having the same schedule every day, for so long. and since we didn't have a full week, i still haven't quite got a handle on the scheduling, and how i should pace myself. which probably explains part of why i'm so tired. anyway, here's for some particulars on the classes!

IJ
the standard grammar class like we were having every morning before. we're even using a continuation of the textbook from before, so there's not much to report there. though it's nice to be back in Ari-sensei's class again. i keep getting flashbacks to first term, which is kind of nice b/c then it reminds me how far i've come since then.

Bungaku (Literature)
a lot of work! and it's headed up by Otake-sensei (my first time having her) who has the reputation for being one of the strictest sensei at IUC, so that had me a little worried. but she seems nice, at least. we're going to be reading a variety of short stories by different japanese authors, along with some kind of criticism/scholarly article about each story/author we cover. this week was Endo Shusaku's "Kageboshi." i liked the story and Shusaku's writing style a lot, and language-wise, i had a much easier time with it than i was afraid i would. but i'm still a pretty slow reader when it comes to Japanese, and at 30+ pp, this one took a *long* time. i started it over break, then on Wed afternoon went over to tully's to read the second half or so. ......3 hours later i finally finished it. when i was done, i still had taishyu bunka reading to do for the next day, and i tried to start that, but it was just absolutely useless. after 3 hours of nonstop shusaku, my brain had turned into complete mush. i started at the page for a while, trying to decide if those little symbols swimming around were actually words or not, then packed it in and went home, where i proceeded to be utterly useless for the rest of the day. so i think the moral there is that i'm gonna have to pace myself a little better.

Taishyu Bunka (Pop Culture)
FUN!! i'm super excited about this class. right now we're doing a unit on CM (that's japanese for "commercials." i'm serious) and that's really neat. we get to watch videos like "2007 CM, Best 10" and then talk about what they were CM for, what we thought was interesting about the way each product was portrayed, things like that. the next unit is manga, and then there'll be a unit on movies--we get to watch Spirited Away, Shall We Dance, Battle Royale...i'm really excited about that. and the readings should be really interesting too. though, as in bungaku, it definitely seems like this term they're upping the level of the articles and things we're given to read. it's much more the kind of journal articles and things like what i would use for a Yale paper, but in japanese.

Business Nihongo
Ari-sensei again! only have this class once a week, on friday mornings. they split us up into 2 sections--i'm in the "not particularly interested in business/econ" group.^^ which means that the class will mostly focus on keigo (polite japanese) and the kinds of conversations you'd encounter working in a japanese company. like, this morning we went over the 自己紹介, the self-introduction that you have to do on your first day, as well as the 1-minute 自己PR spiel, which is something that gets asked a lot in job interviews in japan--basically "tell us in 1 minute why we should hire you" kind of thing. so that's really great, especially since i plan to start looking for jobs in japan for after IUC (something else i need to do...)

i guess that's it for now. i'm going to go bum around for a bit and then head to bed i think.

new video! (sorry, didn't realize the other one had gone away. like i said, sometimes they get taken off of youtube)

Alice Nine, "Ruri no Ame" (Sapphire Rain)
i'm only halfway into this group, musically-speaking. the lead singer has a really distinct voice, which...i have to decide if i really love or not. but i think this is an absolutely *gorgeous* video, which is why i'm posting it ^_^

i've been had!

2008-01-15T23:34:00.000+09:00

so, i know it's only just been the first day of classes, but i'm beginning to suspect that whole spiel they fed us about "2nd term is the hardest, 3rd term will be much easier" was nothing more than a clever ruse to fool us into がんばって-ing and making it through those last few weeks before break.

Lies!

...I better go finish my homework now.

以上！

Back in Japan

2008-01-11T19:09:00.000+09:00

ただいま～！
OK, so I am officially back in Yokohama. Got in yesterday, at about 3pm. Of course, that's when I landed. By the time I got back to my apartment, it was more like 7. But, what can you do. I was super tired when I got in, and the thought of having to drag my enormous suitcases through Yokohama station--again--was really just too horrible to contemplate (Japanese train stations all have way more stairs than they have any right to--and almost no escalators, forget about elevators--and Yokohama station is so enormous, no matter how many times I go there, I always get lost. it's like a rule). So, given all of that, I decided to suck up the $30 and send my bags by takyubin--which is the most amazing delivery service, and pretty cheap too--considering I was sending 2 huge suitcases, and I got them less than 24 hours later.
Oh! and I randomly ran into Marshall in the airport, so that was fun. he was just getting in, too. we chatted a bit and were on the same Narita express to Yokohama.

Not much else to report, besides jetlag, so this won't be a really interesting entry.

also, changing the video, finally--due to my lack of updates while i was home, the An Cafe video got left up for 2 weeks. oh well. besides, any video with bunny ears and whipped-cream fights is *worth* an extra week. in my opinion.

new video is:
Yui, "My Generation."

in honor of my mom, who asked me if there were any female singers in Japan, "because your music is all guys."
(>_<)

craziness!

2007-12-29T04:44:00.001+09:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

well, a little late.
sorry if it's been a bit boring on here of late, I've been enjoying my relaxing time at home, and also trying to get over my jet lag (mostly successful on that score, altho I'm still on this whole "bed at 10, up at 8" thing that's very new and weird to me. not sure how i feel about it).

got a new laptop for christmas!!!!! santa loves me! ^_^

anyway, i don't really have much to report, since i'm not in japan at the moment, but as it's friday, i thought i'd go ahead and update the video of the week anyway--also since the T&T vid seems to have suffered an unscheduled disappearance (something about copyright...lol. anyway, it got removed from youtube. so.)

new video:
Antic Cafe, "Ryuusei Rocket"

HILARIOUS!

and this will be an even busier one...

2007-12-21T17:32:00.001+09:00

I go home for Christmas on Sunday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OK, now that's out of my system...
Lol.

But this will probably be my last post before I go home. I'm going in to Shibuya tonight to meet Rebecca's' friend from UNC, who's in Tokyo doing research. So we're going to have dinner somewhere around there, and that should be a lot of fun.
Then, tomorrow, bright and early, I have to haul ass over to the budokan for the 月例会 monthly kyudo tournament. Since it's a morning one, it will probably last all day--I wouldn't be surprised if I don't get home until around 5pm?
Then, I'm most likely meeting Molly, Misa, and perhaps some others for an okonomiyaki dinner, and then potentially another trip to Thrash Zone?

Oh, right! I forgot! So last night (Thursday), in honor of being done with class and all the tests, I went out with Jason, Molly, Katie, Felicia, and Tim to this place Molly found near Yokohama eki called "Thrash Zone."
Molly wanted to go there because, according to the description online, it was a "thrash metal bar" with a "cozy atmosphere," wood paneling, and a plant in the corner.
.... and that appealed to her sense of humor.
It's also a microbrew place, which is fairly rare in Japan, so we were looking forward to getting the chance to try some truly yummy beers, as well. And we were not disappointed, in any respect.
Thrash Zone turned out to be this absolutely tiny place on the 2nd floor of a rundown building. It was certainly cozy though, and apart from lots of Iron Maiden-esque record covers decorating the walls and Ozzy playing (very quietly and politely) in the background, it wasn't terribly "thrashy." The place was also mostly salaryman-types--including this one 社長 who had lived in Boston and was very excited about speaking English with us. Felicia got stuck talking to him (sorry!) but Molly, Jason, and I ended up down at the other end of the bar and had a really interesting conversation with these two thirtysomething guys who seemed to be somewhat regulars. They were really nice, though, and didn't make any attempts to speak English with us, so it was good practice.

So anyway, it's been a busy several days, and will continue to be so, right up until I leave, I feel. But I'll try to post again a couple of times when I get home--though it will be break, so don't expect much.

One last thing:
this week's video!
Takky & Tsubasa, "Samurai"

not exactly "traditional" in that sense, but...
Lol.
feel the love. i know you do.

it was a busy weekend...

2007-12-21T17:11:00.000+09:00

Karaoke!

Sunday afternoon Jason, Misa, Marshall and I got together again with the kids from HamaDai to go to karaoke and dinner. Molly was sposed to come too, but she got sick. :-(
We got to see Ai and Naoko again, as well as Jacky (the Chinese exchange student who was also one of our guides at the festival)--although Yan couldn't make it this time, which was kind of sad.
But we had a lot of fun! I even attempted a couple of Japanese songs--to varying degrees of success, lol. Although I do think I managed the Monpachi song relatively well. (I've certainly sung along to the CD in my room enough times.)

Here's a picture! (which for some reason didn't turn out all that great...oh, well). L-R is : Ai, Misa, Jacky, Naoko, Jacky's cousin (didn't speak English or Japanese, just Chinese), Marshall, and Jason.

After karaoke, we went out to dinner (minus Jacky and his cousin) at a yakiniku (literally "grilled meat") place near the station. YUM! They bring little grill-things over to each table, you order whatever kind of (raw) meat/veggies you want, and then cook it yourself at the table. In addition to being delicious, it's also a lot of fun!
Here's a photo I took of Naoko, Misa (middle), and Ai. Everyone is, of course, doing the obligatory two-fingers thing (I'm not sure if they call it a peace sign here, I don't think it has that association)--can't take a photo in Japan without one.

picspam time! (a.k.a. I'M DONE!!!!!!)

2007-12-21T16:51:00.000+09:00

So, here's some photos and items of interest that I've been storing up lately, lol.

First off, last week I went over to the Aka Renga to do my Christmas shopping. For those of you who remember, Aka Renga where they set up the tents for Oktoberfest before. It's basically this big collection of old brick warehouses that have been turned into shops and restaurants. It's down by the harbor, in between Pacifico and 山下公園 Yamashita Park. And, in honor of Christmas, they'd set up this cute little skating rink outside, sort of like a mini-Rockefeller Center. Lol. (It really is pretty small.)

Also, Thank you, Light Fellowship!!
Haha, now that I've gotten that out of my system, Adam from the Light office came with his wife and daughter to Japan last week, doing site visits and stuff. The Yalies (me, Jason, Jeff, and Byol) met up with them in Shibuya last Saturday night, and got treated to a fabulous dinner at a restaurant called Gonpachi, which I guess is the same one the summer fellows took Dean Farley to when he came to visit back in August.
We didn't have much time to take photos (I tried to take some of the inside of the restaurant, but it was too dark), so this is my attempt at a night view of Shibuya from the 15th floor.

It's that time of the week again

2007-12-15T13:51:00.000+09:00

New video!
みつき　「大切なもの」
Mitsuki, "Something Important"

She looks like a 12 year old boy, but has the most amazing voice.
Also, apparently this song was the theme to some movie, so the video has scenes from that.

just the weekly stuffs

2007-12-09T12:30:00.000+09:00

so, in IJ--the book for morning class--the chapters alternate between Written and Conversation sections. which is really good cause it means you get practice in both more formal, written expressions/constructions, as well as more casual spoken styles. well, i guess that's the point.
so, we've been on the Convo section of chapter 2 this week, which means lots of focus on casual sentence patterns and getting proper intonation and stuff (ya~y! cause that's my strong point! can i just say how much i love it when we're not reading things? like when we get to do videos in afternoon class, instead of newspaper articles)
and i had kind of a nice boost on friday when Senda-sensei mentioned to me that compared with when she was my afternoon teacher 1st term, she thought that my speaking and intonation and stuff had really improved since then! XD so that totally made my day. i was sort of feeling like i'd been getting better, but it's nice to be told that by someone who can be an actual objective judge of your performance. and i firmly maintain that at least part of said improvement is thanks to my J-dorama habit. also, Senda-sensei found out that I'm going back to Raleigh for christmas, and has requested an ACC handbook as an omiyage. LoL ^.^

Friday after class was super busy but lots of fun. i took off right as soon as class got out at 3, to go over and meet Sato Masako (from my kyudo club at the budokan) at yokohama eki, because she's actually the kyudo sensei at a high school around there. the last tournament, i was talking to her about how i had done kyudo back in the states when i was in high school, and she asked if i would come over one day and talk to her students about my experiences. so i got to do that on friday! she actually wanted me to talk to them in english, since they're all learning it but never get a chance to practice speaking it. so, i did my little intro talk in english, then went back and sort of summarized it in japanese, cause i'm really not sure how much they understood. then Sato-san wanted them all to come over and introduce themselves, and talk to me a little in english. they were all sooooo embarrassed, it was actually rather cute. i tried to talk to them in english a bit, but nobody really seemed comfortable with it, and they all knew that i spoke japanese, so it mostly ended up being that. but it was still fun.
oh! and an even better thing--one of the other sensei at the high school is actually a hanshi (there's no "higher" after that) and so i got to have him correct my shooting a bit--joy! i learned a few things that i didn't even realize i'd been doing wrong, and i actually got the bow to do almost a full yugaeri! it went like halfway around, which i've *never* gotten it to do before. ちょう～嬉しい！ let's just hope i can keep it up from now on. oh, and it turns out that this hanshi sensei was actually in the States for the testing seminar in SC this past summer--so he met Dan-sensei! i swear, every time i meet a kyudo person in Japan, they know Dan-sensei, or know someone who does...it just makes me realize again how lucky I was to get to study there.

i left the high school at about 5:30 (actually had to cut out of their practice a little early) and hopped the Minato Mirai-sen right back to Queen's, because at 6 was Ari-sensei's (my advisor) "Happy Just-Married" party. she's married to a former IUC student...oooOOoohh. as is Aoki-sensei, incidentally--there was a card passed around for everyone to sign, and i saw that he had written "Welcome to AIMY--Association of International Marriages, Yokohama." LOL. oh the things we find to amuse ourselves...
anyway, there were lots of people there--Ari-sensei's family (her dad kept going around trying to shove drinks and food into people's hands--he wasn't satisfied unless everyone had a drink in each hand and, preferably, several plates on their laps), most of the IUC sensei/staff (Matsumoto-sensei was, as usual, popping out of corners, snapping awkward photos of people all evening), and all of Ari-sensei's current students and advisees. a good time was had by all.
oh, and Sano-sensei caught me at one point, to let me know she had gotten a コルティナさん、よろしく mail from Stever-sensei (my 3rd-year japanese teacher at Yale). it was kind of loud and i was totally not in the thinking-of-yale mindset, so at first i didn't realize who she was talking about. it was kind of embarrassing when i was finally like "oh, yes! Stever-sensei was my teacher at Yale!" and Sano-sensei's kind of got this "...and you forgot her already...?" expression. lol. oh, well.

oh, and saturday i went out to start my christmas shopping (managed to put a decent dent in it, i think. it's hard tho). then i met up with Matsuzawa-sensei to go to this place in Landmark that was having a kimono sale (even on sale they're expensive). and this was a for-real place, where they show you all the patterns individually, and drape things around you... i think Matsuzawa-sensei just wanted someone to go with. it was neat, but we didn't stay for long. Matsuzawa-sensei kept talking about how last time, they had other things too, like tabi for really cheap. so i think that's what she'd intended to go for.
oh, but they also had this very odd noodle promotion going on. by the desk, there were several jars of bowtie noodles, elbow macaroni, things like that--and for 20 yen you got a small bag to fill up with as many noodles as it would hold. it was great, and i'll definitely be eating them for supper sometime soon but...... I'm not really sure what noodles have to do with a kimono sale. oh well, i guess a bargain is a bargain.

and here i will end what has become rather a long post. also, it's sunday and i was therefore feeling rather lazy--so apologies for the relative lack of capitalization and appropriate punctuation in the above ramblings.

sniff sniff

2007-12-09T01:00:00.000+09:00

new Video of the Week:
Orange Range, "Sayonara"

Great song from one of my favorite Japanese groups (tho this isn't exactly representative of their usual).
This video seriously made me bawl the first time I watched it.
There's some dialogue to it, but basically all you need to know, is the lines at the beginning of the video:
"October 25, 2006...I died."

(If you want to know more, drop me a line and I'll give you a rough translation, but that's all I'm putting in here for now.)

the times we live in?

2007-12-06T18:29:00.000+09:00

I don't think I've mentioned this in the blog yet, but I decided after all to go home for Christmas (15 days to go, yay!)
Because of that, I had to go down to the Immigration Office after school today to get my 再入国許可 Re-Entry Permit, so that I could actually come back to Japan after my break is done. Lol.
While I waited for my paperwork to be processed, this video was playing on repeat, in several languages, on TV screens all around the room.

The video highlights Japan's new security policy, implemented as of Nov. 1 this year, the gist of which is that in an attempt to combat terrorism, all foreigners entering Japan will be fingerprinted and photographed. This includes not just tourists, but also foreigners resident in Japan--so in other words, when I come back to Yokohama in January, my fingerprints will be on file with the Japanese government. The beginning of the video describes the procedures for how the fingerprints will be taken, and then the bulk of the rest shows footage from the 9/11 attcks, the London Underground bombings, and various other terrorist incidents, implying that by fingerprinting all foreigners Japan will be able to protect itself from such things.

I've got to admit, it's a little bit of an unnerving thought, although from what I understand it's not all that different from the current "US Visit" system for foreigners entering the states. There hasn't been as much discussion about the policy here as you might think--other than the Tourist Office being worried that the new procedures will discourage people from traveling to Japan. But it's big news in the expat/blog community, where words like "discrimination" and "interrogation" get tossed around frequently, with other people proclaiming that the new policy has caused them to cut Japan out of their travel plans.

Having not experienced the process firsthand, I don't really know what I think yet. I wouldn't go so far to say it's a reason to stay away from Japan, but I do understand the feelings, for instance, of people who are longtime, tax-paying residents and now must have their fingerprints on file. Especially in a country where most people don't own any kind of photo identification (and aren't required to), and the most common form of ID is a Health Insurance card.

Anyway, like I said, I'm not sure what I think about all this yet, really, but I just thought I'd share.

文楽　(oh! i forgot!)

2007-12-05T21:46:00.000+09:00

Today we got out of class at 11:30, because there was a field trip! Well, only those of use who signed up went, but.
We took the train into Tokyo to the National Japan Theater to go and see a 文楽 bunraku performance. Bunraku is Japanese puppet theater, but don't go imagining Pinocchio or muppets or anything. The style of the plays and the performances themselves take a lot from Kabuki and Noh theater, and so are very traditional in that way. Just, instead of people in masks, you have puppets performing the action. The puppets are fairly large, around 3 feet tall I'd guess, and incredibly intricate and expressive. I was really amazed how much range they could give, even down to being able to pick things up with the hands, or raising and lowering the eyebrows. Each puppet is manipulated by 3 people (that's right, 3!) who carry it around onstage. The main person operates the head/face and right hand; a second person is the left hand; and the third person is the feet/legs. The main puppeteer wears a traditional hakama and kimono, but the other two people are dressed all in black, with executioner-style black hoods so you can't even see their faces. The puppets don't actually do any talking. Instead, the dialogue and narration are sung, kabuki-style, by the narrator who sits off to the side of the stage, accompanied by a shamisen player.
The beginning part of the performance was really neat--it started off with a dance performed by two puppets, and then the puppeteers came out and gave an explanation of the various movements, and how the puppets are manipulated. That was really interesting, especially talking about the differences in movement between male and female puppets, &c. After a while, you really stop seeing them as puppets in such an obvious way.
After that, they did a famous scene from one of the bunraku plays, which was interesting but extremely difficult to understand. Like I said before, all the dialogue and narration is done speak-singing style by one person, so for starters it was hard for me to get a sense of who was talking when. The lines were projected above the stage, like what's typically done in opera, but the entire play is written in old Japanese--the same as when it was originally written however-long ago. Which means that even the Japanese in the audience had rented these headphone-devices that translated the play into modern Japanese for them. So of course I had no hope of understanding anything, though we were given an English synopsis of the play.
...I have to admit i nodded off a bit. But then, so did about half of the audience--I gather that this is rather common, if not expected, especially in Noh--so I don't feel quite so bad.

picking classes? without shopping them first!?!

2007-12-05T21:16:00.000+09:00

This week we also found out about the plan for 3rd term, which starts up in January, after the break.
Up til now, we've been having simple morning class (grammar-focused) and afternoon class (newspaper articles, videos, current events discussion), the same every day. But apparently during 3rd and 4th term at IUC, you get to choose from a variety of elective-type classes, so the curriculum becomes more tailored to students' particular interests. So this week we got the information about the different options, and picked our top choices. There are three groups of courses plus another set of optional after-school courses that you can opt in to.
Group A (pick 1):
政治・経済　Business/Economics
美術史 Art History
文学　Literature
文化人類学　Anthropology
法律　Law
歴史学　History/Historiography

Group B (pick 1):
Reading
Listening
Speaking
Business Japanese

Group III (pick 1): [no, I don't know why it's III and not C, it just is]
現代史　Modern History
大衆文化　Popular Culture
ビジネス・社会　Business/Society

Optional Classes:
書道　Calligraphy (Shodo)
古筆 Old-style Writing
文語文法専門 Classical Japanese
ビジネス Business

So, the ones I picked were Literature (A), Business Japanese (B), and Popular Culture (III). In the optional classes, I'm continuing on with shodo, which I've been taking this semester at IUC, too (I've mentioned that, right?). I also checked the box for the optional business course, because it might be interesting; I was a little worried about whether it would be over my head, but Ari-sensei said I can just go to the first lecture and see what I think, so I figure I might as well give it a shot. I didn't really have any trouble deciding the other stuff--since I'm not in any way grad school bound, anything I do in relation to Japan after IUC would definitely be work-related, so Business Japanese was a no-brainer. And since 1) I'm interested in publishing, and 2) my reading skills could use some work--the Literature course is definitely the best thing for me out of A-group (altho the Anthropology also sounded neat).
The way the schedule will work, we'll have A-group M/Th mornings; B-group F morning; and III-group in the afternoon (except Wed when we have afternoons off, like now). Tu/W mornings, we'll be continuing on with IJ, which is the grammar textbook we're using in our current morning class, so I guess that will be pretty much the same type of deal as now.
It sounds like a lot of work on paper, but as I've mentioned before, it's supposedly easier than 2nd term, so... We'll see. I'm looking forward to the change of pace.

Asakusa + Kyudo

2007-12-05T20:25:00.000+09:00

This past Saturday, I went with Matsuzawa-sensei to this kyudo thing in Asakusa. I still don't exactly understand what was going on, but it was for some kind of matsuri (didn't catch the details).
At any rate, it's an annual event--I guess you'd call it a tournament, although there's no "winner" in that sense. The tournament goes over 2 days, with people showing up at the dojo all day. You sign up when you arrive, they give you a number, and then when your number comes up, you get to go and shoot 4 arrows (in kyudo, called 四つ矢 yotsuya). Like in Western archery, the arrows are scored based on where on they target they hit--although this is rather unusual in kyudo, where it's usually a question of if you hit the target, not where. Then, the people with the several highest scores (I'm not sure how many, really) get some sort of prize, and you can win a kendama if you hit the bullseye.
I met Matsuzawa-sensei at Ohkurayama, on the Toyoko-sen, and we went together from there to Asakusa (cause I would've had no idea how to get there). We arrived at the dojo a little before 3pm, and were given #406 and 407, respectively. Since they were only on #300 when we got there, we didn't actually get in to shoot until a littlel after 5. I did pretty well. It was a really small dojo, and they were shooting 6 at a time, so it was more cramped than I was used to and I kept hitting the people in front of and behind me with my bow (lol), but I managed to get 10 points! The scoring went: 3pts, 5, 7, and 10 for the bullseye--I got two 5's, first and last arrows!

After we finished shooting, Matsuzawa-sensei took me to this really amazing restaurant in Asakusa to have どじょう dojou, which is apparently a bit of an Asakusa 名物 specialty, that you can only get in a few places. This restaurant is called 駒形どぜう Komagata Dozeu (dozeu being another name for dojou), and it's been around since 1801, specializing in dojou--it's actually all they serve. It's a very nostalgic-feeling restaurant, with low tables, where you sit on cushions on the straw-mat floor. And the food is nabe-style, where you cook it over a burner at the table.
Speaking of the food, I didn't really understand what dojou was (Matsuzawa-sensei kept saying that it was "like a baby eel," but I didn't understand if that meant it was a baby eel, or just looked kind of like that...). At any rate, it tastes very similar to unagi, which I LOVE, it's one of my favorite foods, so that was enough for me. For those who are curious, I've since found out (thanks to Wikipedia, both English and Japanese versions--Japanese wikipedia is just as cool, btw) that dojou is actually a type of loach, which is a small freshwater eel.
At Komagata, they bring you a small skillet filled with dojou, which you place over the burner and then cover with negi-onions, literally to the point where there's a mountain of negi on the skillet, and you can't see the fish at all. You let it cook for a while, pouring this sauce over it, and then eat! It was really good, and I'm soooooooo thankful to Matsuzawa-sensei for taking me (and treating me). She's seriously the sweetest person ever, and has really become like a second grandma to me here, always treating me to things, giving me food, checking to make sure I'm eating properly ("not just パン bread"). ^_^

We also walked by the famous Asakusa temple on our way to the restaurant, and it was huge and really beautiful. It was night by that time, so I don't have any pictures, but hopefully I'll go back sometime, and then I promise lots of photos.