Calligraphy Lesson

Posted on June 24, 2010 by baudattitude

It may or may not be obvious, but I’m a bit of an attention whore.

I loves me an audience.

This will become apparent.

We had calligraphy class after our normal lessons today. Obviously, with only an hour to do it, it was less of a class and more of a “let’s have the foreigners mess around with paint.”

I wasn’t very good at it.

The guy I was sitting next to was AMAZING, he’s Korean and apparently he’s been doing calligraphy since he was a very small child.

Obviously, sitting next to him, my first-timer chicken scratches weren’t going to measure up.

Worse yet, since he was so good, he had a constant stream of people coming by to look at his calligraphy. Since they were coming to our table, and didn’t want to seem rude, they of course would look at whatever I was writing and say “jouzu desu ne” before they got on to the real reason they’d come over.

“Jouzu desu ne” is Japanese for “wow, you can tie your shoelaces all by yourself?”

Well, basically.

So I was feeling kinda dumb.

On the other hand, I had the advantage in one critical area: He, and most of my other classmates, were busting out the “love” and “dreams” and “spirit” and “dragon” kanji, and I took a bit of a different approach.

Below: 老人 (“geezer”) and 禿 (bald). While I’m certainly not winning any contests of skill, I did get a lot of Serious Japanese People to bust out laughing.

And that’s what it’s all about. 🙂

Posted in Japan, japanese | 3 Comments

This Egg Sandwich is Yummy.

Posted on June 23, 2010 by baudattitude

Let’s bite and taste it!

Tamago dog! Basically egg salad in a hot dog bun, yours for a reasonable Y100 at your nearest Family Mart.

Out of the package:

And actually it was pretty yummy. 

I’ve noticed that expiration dates on food here are super short; I’m used to buying yogurt in the US and having a month or more to eat it, whereas here food has expiration dates of, at best, a week and a half past the day you’re buying it.  I’m going to chalk that up to Japan being a much smaller place, making food shipping from place to place quicker, so they’ve never needed to get into the hard core preservatives like in the US.

It is a different mindset, though, and I’ve had to get past my initial reactions of “this food is too close to its expiration date! I can’t buy it now!”

Posted in food, Japan | Leave a comment

Japan-size me

Posted on June 23, 2010 by baudattitude

While I’m over in Japan taking language courses, I’ve been doing some side research on a project of my own – that is, I’m trying to find out if it’s really as hard as everyone says to find clothes that fit.

For reference, I’m not a small guy.  I’m 183cm and pushing 100kg, and I wear an american size 12 shoe that equates to a Japanese 29 or 30.  I’m a little above average size in the US and I’m a freaking giant in Japan.

I used to be a much larger guy, at 135kg, and if I was still that guy I wouldn’t want to come to Japan.  I got down to 85kg at one point, and that would be an even better weight to be here, but 100kg it is for now.

Anyway, from a not terribly scientific sample, I’m not really able to buy shirts off the rack here.  Japanese “LL” shirts will fit, but they’re not the kind of fit that’s particularly comfortable, and they’re not even that common.  Most places stop at “L” for shirts.  I also have a bit of a problem with jeans – I have a 90cm waist and most of the ones in the shops stop around 85cm.  Slacks are easier, they go all the way up to 90.

That being said, I picked up a men’s mail order catalogue and it has shirt sizes all the way up to 5L and waistlines up into the bigger numbers, so if I actually NEEDED to buy clothes here I could.  I’ve also heard that there are a few “big & tall” chains around; it’s possible that even my much bigger self could have gotten dressed here.  I’m going to check one of those out at some point, just to see how “big and tall” they really mean.  I expect some amusement. 🙂

What I was more worried about was shoes.  I’d heard that Japanese shoes were readily available up into the 26 size, with 27 not being too hard to find, but that beyond that was madness.

Either things have changed or I’m in a part of Tokyo where they have particularly monstrous inhabitants, because I walked into both of the shoe stores near the station and found size 29 and 30 shoes in both.  One of them actually had the bigger sizes set off to one size, presumably so customers needing that size of shoe wouldn’t accidentally step on, sit on, or eat the smaller shoppers, but the other store had them mixed neatly in with the more common 22 and 23 sizes.

For reference, that’s american men’s sizes 4 and 5.

I bought a pair of sneakers that were size 30 and EEE width and they’re actually roomier and more comfortable than the shoes I wore over here.  They were also only Y2900, which I thought was pretty damn reasonable for athletic shoes.

Granted, if you’re over an american size 12 shoe, I wouldn’t try buying shoes here, but then you might have a difficult time even in the states.

Posted in Japan | Leave a comment

Parfait GET

Posted on June 22, 2010 by baudattitude

There’s an early episode of Ranma 1/2, everyone’s favorite comedy about sex-changing martial artists, in which Ranma (in his feminine form) is gorging himself on parfaits because he could never possibly order one as a man.

Having been to Japan a few times and seen the patently ridiculous parfaits you can get in cafes, I can empathize.  They’re huge and look really delicious and ordering one as a man is possibly the least manly thing one could possibly do, right down there with buying a poodle.

That is, unless you’re some kind of pro-wrestler type and built like you’re made out of bricks and are buying a poodle as an ironic statement.  Cause I can kind of get behind that.

Anyway.

With me in Japan at the moment are eight other students from my university, and we were discussing my desire to taste the forbidden dessert and it transpired that one of the others wanted to buy a parfait as well and she didn’t mind being my “cover” for ordering one for myself.

It was also my birthday, so I felt that I deserved to explore previously unknown vistas.

Anyway, we went to the nearby “Jonathan’s”, which is a family restaurant – think a Denny’s, for reference – and ordered us up a couple of parfaits.  I may or may not have been wearing a false beard and sunglasses.

This was mine:

For the record, the list of ingredients as enumerated by the menu:

  • Strawberry sauce
  • Soft-serve ice cream
  • Cookie
  • Nectarine
  • Corn Flakes (yes, there were, don’t ask me why)
  • Yogurt
  • Vanilla ice cream (a layer of non-soft-serve)
  • Aloe (presumably the little green leaves on top)

Now, this wasn’t the most overdone parfait I’ve seen – this was a Jonathan’s, after all, not some fancy Shinjuku cafe – but it was plenty silly and I felt that I had adequately sated my hunger for girly treats, while still managing to hang on to the last shreds of my waning manhood.

Posted in food, Japan | Leave a comment

McDonald’s Cheese Teri Tama

Posted on June 21, 2010 by baudattitude

I’ve been trying to be sociable while I’m in Japan, which means that I’m trying to invite people along when I go down to the nearby station area to eat.  Unfortunately, I’m learning that this comes with some necessary compromises.

For example, the other day I’d found a place that had enticing plastic window food, most of it adhering to the “tonkatsu + sauce = love” equation, and it was my intention to go back there for dinner.

My walking companion, however, wasn’t so sure about the place, and then wasn’t terribly keen on the idea of going into an Okonomiyaki place, and so we wound up at, well…

I’m going to defend the trip to McDonald’s as another instance of me sacrificing my sanity and stomach for the benefit of the few poor souls who stumble across this blog.

Anyway, the current seasonal burger in Japan is the Teri Tama burger, available also with cheese as the cleverly named “Cheese Teri Tama” burger, and I ordered one of those.  I also went for the strawberry-yogurt McFlurry, probably because I figured I wasn’t doing myself enough harm with the burger.

It has yogurt in it, it’s got to be healthy, right?

Anyway, the burger, etc:

Between a bun – that was, as an aside, woefully inadequate to withstand the assault of the various sauces – you get some mayo, lettuce, an egg, some cheese (presuming, of course, that you have selected the CHEESE Teri Tama), and a burger liberally soaked in teriyaki sauce.

The overall effect is interesting, if a little disturbing.  It’s kind of in this indeterminate state between solid and liquid, and gives the impression that, if you wanted to, you could probably swallow the burger without necessarily chewing.

Needless to say, it was terribly messy to eat. 

The McFlurry was, as expected, strawberryish and a little tart from the yogurt, nothing special to mention there though it was fairly good.

The true surprise of the evening?  I wasn’t actually in intense intestinal pain after eating this thing.  I’m going to file that under “incredibly lucky” and refrain from pushing my luck by going back for another one.

Posted in food, Japan | Leave a comment

Tooth Beavers?

Posted on June 19, 2010 by baudattitude

This is probably only funny if you watched Ren & Stimpy in the 90s.

Since I did, I cringed JUST a little at the sight of a dental office with a beaver mascot. 🙂

Posted in Japan | Leave a comment

Ultra Cola!

Posted on June 19, 2010 by baudattitude

So, I’ll be in Japan until the 10th of August, which means that this is probably going to be used as a showcase for weird food and drink items for the next month and a half or so.

Mind you, those posts are what get me the most traffic, so it’s a win-win: I don’t have to do much work to write them and people come to read them anyway.

Anyway, today’s item: Ultra cola. Actually, Ultra Cola AND Ultra Lemonade, though the lemonade is more properly based on Ultraman’s enemies. I saw these in a vending machine in Mukougaoka, which is a place name I wouldn’t like to say three times quickly, and invested 200円 into the purchase of a can of each.

Of course, what I didn’t realize was that even though the cans on display represented Ultraman and Baltan, the actual cans you got were random, selected from an assortment of Ultra-family members and villians.

So I wound up with a Zoffy and a Dada, but it could have been worse. At least it wasn’t one of the weirder new Ultra-brothers.

Posted in Japan | Leave a comment

Frames, Fatal

Posted on June 4, 2010 by baudattitude

So about Fatal Frame, eh?

After loving Fatal Frame II to pieces, which is an odd emotion to attach to a horror game, I was not too surprised that I thoroughly enjoyed the original Fatal Frame, with the exception of one notable segment very close to the end where you have to fight four, well, rather tough ghosts – though I hesitate to call them bosses – which came right at a point where I happened to be almost completely out of healing items.

So it was really rough and I had to do it over a few times before I got it.

On the other hand, the final fight of the game was done really well.  The game recognizes that, well, it’s the last bit of the game and you might be running a LITTLE low on resources as you come to the end of the game, so it actually takes pity on you and hands you just enough film and health to fight the last fight, even if you’re otherwise running dry.

I did have to do it over once, but I won’t blame the game for that.

I tried for a bit of a change of pace after that and started Lego Indiana Jones, and it really wasn’t grabbing me.  Unfortunately, while I liked Lego Star Wars an awful lot, I find that I’ve fallen into the trap of buying progressively less enjoyable sequels.  I own Lego Star Wars I & II, Lego Batman, and Lego Indy, and honestly I’m kind of dreading trying to play through all of Lego Indy and haven’t been able to even get through the first level of Lego Batman.

Oh well.

So I started Fatal Frame III instead and will let you know how that goes.  I’ve played about an hour so far and I’m noticing a few things:

1) I still miss the FPS mode from the Xbox version of Crimson Butterfly, BUT at least the game’s controls are very customizable – so I can always have movement on the left stick and look on the right stick.

2) I’m also really seeing the difference between PS2 visuals and Xbox visuals.  I mean, the PS2 graphics are certainly adequate, but there’s a… it’s hard to describe.  It’s like the Xbox versions did shadows better, which means a lot in an atmospheric game.

3) I’m really glad I played through FF 1 & 2 before starting this.  I played through FF2 without ever having played the first game, and that wasn’t a problem.  FF3 is, so far, full of references to both older games.

4) Speaking of which, both older FF games DID have happy endings, if you played through them at higher difficulty levels, but in the world of FF3, those happy endings are ignored.

5) The game goes back and forth between the real world and a dream world and it’s a big change.  I’m used to being stuck in crumbling ruined mansions from beginning to end, so the bits where you are running around your tastefully furnished house (with cat!) and not being chased by ghosts are a little odd.

6) On the other hand, there’s a lot more backstory for the assorted ghosts you run into, which can be interesting to read and which wouldn’t make sense if you weren’t occasionally popping back to reality.

Posted in PS2, videogames, xbox | Leave a comment

Scary done right proper.

Posted on May 26, 2010 by baudattitude

After playing several games recently that flirted with the tame edge of the “horror game” genre, I’ve decided to give myself some real scares.  I started Fatal Frame last night, and damn if it isn’t a fine way to freak yourself out, especially played in the dark with headphones on.

I’m having a little trouble adapting to the controls, I’ll admit.  I really appreciate the FPS mode from Fatal Frame II now, because the constant shifting between first and third person in this game is a bit tricky to manage.  I’ve already died once, and it was to a fairly early boss fight and I’m going to blame it squarely on not being able to spatially orient properly when switching perspectives.

Still, I’ll get the hang of it.  It’s a lot of fun so far and definitely seems worth the effort to recalibrate my brain a bit.  🙂

Posted in videogames, xbox | Leave a comment

So, I have a couple of movies to watch.

Posted on May 25, 2010 by baudattitude

So here’s the thing:

I own, on DVD, “Parasite Eve: The Movie”, and I bought “Silent Hill: The Movie” off iTunes a few months ago when it was a $4.99 movie.

I haven’t watched either yet, mind you, because I didn’t want to have the games ruined for me.

Now I can.

See, I finished Parasite Eve a couple of nights ago – and, by the way, serious thumbs up to the game overall, though I did have to use a walkthrough to get through a really awful sewer maze level and the final boss is five kinds of bastard – and the next game off the to-play stack was the recent “re-envisioning” of Silent Hill, which took a little under eight hours to play through.

Apparently I’ve been in a creepy-games mood of late.

Silent Hill : Shattered Memories, to give it its full title, is a big departure from, well, the sorts of things I normally expect from a survival horror game.  There’s no miserly hoarding of scarce ammo and checking every last cabinet for healing items, because there’s no weapons and no fighting.  There aren’t even many puzzles, though one particular one involving using shadows to spell out a message was memorable.  It’s pretty much an atmosphere game, and what you get out of it is going to be directly proportional to how much you let yourself absorb the mood the game tries to set.

I’m torn between praising its use of the Wii hardware and reviling it.  On the one hand, you use the Wiimote to point your flashlight around and to answer calls on your cell phone, you hear scratching from the speaker and throbbing as you check the environment for hidden secrets… it really lends to the immersion.

On the other hand, it has some godawful flailing around moves that you need to do in order to shake your enemies off you when they grab you, since you have no way to fight back.

So it’s kind of a toss-up, really.  I kind of wish I’d played the PS2 version so I would have a real controller, but I don’t think it would have been as interesting of a game.

Posted in videogames, Wii | Leave a comment