'Cause I'm the king of cellulite

Today, I return with pictures! Additional pictures can be found on facebook for those of you on the site. A lot of people were taking pictures this weekend and I didn't feel the need to take extra when they were going to tag me in theirs. I'm not sure if there uploaded yet though...

First, on my brother's behalf, I have been sampling the culinary delights of Japan and have hit upon a dish that can’t fail to please the sensitive palate of the aforementioned

relative. It is my great honor and privilege to present (drum roll please) the NIKUMAN!!!

The images speak for themselves but I think a few words of explanation won’t go amiss. Essentially it a pocket of bread that surrounds an interior filled with whatever substance it is that Ronald McDonald uses in his burgers. Nikuman is also available in a vegetarian option for those picky eaters out there who don’t want the mystery meat to suffer, but still want to die early of heart failure. It has also several advantages of the hot pocket. One being that these three delicious dietary derivatives cost me about $1. Another being the fact that they are served fresh, never frozen, so the temperature is pretty much the same throughout. That way they stand a chance to pass the lips and sneak guerilla style into the stomach so that they may strategicly place depth charges to wreak havoc at a later date.

Other specimens that frequent the native habitat of the nikuman may be seen in the background. The bag contains moyashi which is a sprout that is easy and cheap to consume. In the small white containers is yogurt, but don't let the name fool you. This isn't your ordinary earth yogurt. In the past it was given the moniker of ambrosia and consumed by the gods. It was said mortals who samples its necture would live forever. Incidentally, it tastes almost exactly like Calpis (giggle if you will), my favorite Japanese drink.

Here is another picture that speaks for itself.

Never, ever buy a T-shirt when you can’t understand the lingo. That is unless you’re a fan of me giggling to myself like a schoolgirl when you walk past.

Finally, I bring to you three characters whose origins I will allow you to determine.

Well, you can guess at two of them. I took two pictures, but in both the flash covered Tony Starks face. I won’t make a comment about blinding beauty. I think Stark is full of himself as it is.

So, how’d did my week go? I thank you for asking. Well, I had a midterm. That’s about all I’ll say about that.

Over the weekend I hung out with a few friends and watched Tron. That movie is actually surprisingly good given that it was the first to use CGI. There are, of course, a few glaring technical flaws in how computers work. It also has a pretty limited plotline amounting to good guy has to save the world by stopping bad guy, got it? And action! Oh, and Jeff Bridges plays Jesus effectively.

After the movie I went to an okonomiyaki restaurant. This is one of my favorite food in Japan. It basically amounts to a cabbage pancake with various topping. Sounds great right? Well it’s delicious, especially with bacon. I also got double servings because my friends couldn’t finish all theirs.

On that note, I have a small segway into the reason one friend couldn’t finish hers. Apparently, she doesn’t eat pork, but was accidentally given one with pork. She isn’t vegetarian. Let me take you back a few years. When she was little, she had just moved into a place that had a pig. She christened said pig Jennifer and would spend time playing outdoors doing everything a girl and her pig do. Then, one day a man came and, with my friend standing there, shot the pig in the head (who saw the com…I mean who saw that?). Not only that, but she was forced to eat Jennifer that night. How screwed up is that?

So, with your appetites gone, let me tell you about the delicious desert I had. It was a crepe, with custard, chocolate ice cream and cheesecake. You know how I love me some cheese cake.

Expect more pictures next week. I’m visiting Kamakura and it is famous for its tourist attractions. And I, being an attractive tourist, will be there to pose with them.

PS: I really wanted to use Piggies by Oingo Boingo as the title, but the song has no line that doesn't include piggies without being much too obscure (even for me). The hot pockets jingle also has no lyrics to reference...

PPS: I apologize to my friend for making light of her horrible experience.

Everyday Normal Guy

It’s Monday night so it must be blog night. Warning, incredibly boring (to read at least) week. It has gotten around the time where I settle into life here and nothing to special happens. Read at your own risk. So without any further adieu:

So this week I got a three day weekend for some holiday or other. So exciting stuff and things. Let’s see went out to a bar with friends on Thursday. I lost my gloves and one of my friends got hot food spilled on them. On Saturday I visited another friend to watch the Last of Shiela, a good classic mystery movie. I liked and I recommend to others.

Hmm, seems a little sparse. Well I do have a midterm on Thursday so I spend a good amount of the weekend on my duff studying. Good times. Well, I recently got upgraded to a room with a TV and so I’ve been taking breaks to watch whatever is on. Some game show I like is something like from the plot of the Saw movies. A team of people are placed in some room and are given a time limit to solve a number of puzzles. The time limit is enforced via something like the room flooding or the walls coming in to crush the players. Naturally, it’s not fatal. The person who explains everything is a guy with a paper bag over his head. Nothing too frightening there. Overall, it’s a bunch of fun even if you don’t know the language.

Again no photos, although I have picked out a few key statues that need their picture taken. They are around a section of town I rarely visit so it might be some time before I get to it.

Since my week was fairly boring I will fill in with random observations:

When I was back in the states I would I look at random Asian people and wonder if they spoke Japanese. Now I look at random white people and wonder if the speak English. For the record, you can apparently tell if someone is Japanese by looking at their legs. If they are slightly bow legged, they’re Japanese. The reason is that they have a very stressful way of sitting and they’re legs have evolved that way. The drawback of this approach is that the person needs to be wearing a short skirt or something for you to notice and the fact you look like a perv while doing it.

Ask any Japanese person (a gross generalization) and they will tell you they want rice for their last meal. Me, I want bread. Pastry, sandwich, toast, it makes no difference. When you’re in the states, you don’t notice the little things like bread, but when you’re in a country whose grain of choice is rice, you get to miss bread. So here’s to the high carb diet.

I’m in a Japanese poem class right now. A small confession: I’ve been stealing and translating some of my poems out of English songs and translating them. I get a small chuckle out of making country songs sound deep.

By the way, let it snow. Finally get a little bit of the white stuff here and it's got me trapped inside while I wait it out. No, we're not talking blizzard by any means. Its just really wet and I toting my laptop around.

I blame this week on writers block. I couldn't even think of a very clever song lyrics. It's the title lyrics so search it up if you haven't heard of it. Funny stuff.

Where is the love

Today's blog, unfortunately, has no photographs. There was simply nothing that caught my eye over the weekend. My apologies.

This weekend I attended a Vietnamese New Years Celebration at a local Buddhist temple with my host family. The food was great. For once I got to eat until I was full. The people were also very fun. One of the head priests is the older brother of my host mother and he was especially active. As we went around the congregation make introductions in front of everyone, he would make interjections and jibes that kept the whole thing moving. One such remark was that I looked like Gregory Peck. I'm not sure I see the resemblance.

On a more somber note, the congregation was filled with mostly Vietnamese immigrants. One told a story about when he and 15 other people fled North Vietnam 20 years ago. 2 of them died on the way. Unfortunately, Japan did not offer much relief. They were granted the status of non-citizen with all the rights it did not afford. They had trouble finding employment as well as overcoming the language barrier (some there that day weren't fluent in Japanese, despite living there for many years). They were eventually granted citizen status, but that did not end the discrimination. Even there children, who grew up in Japan, had trouble finding something to do after their 15 years of compulsory education. Colleges wouldn't accept them and their upwards mobility was almost non-existent.

Another of the congregation was from Brazil. His mother was Japanese while his father was Brazilian. Since he was of Japanese descent, he was granted citizenship, but because of his appearance, he was about as welcome as the Vietnamese.

I, being of American Stock (that is to say, the mutt of nationalities), “suffer” something called positive discrimination. I am afforded the utmost respect as a foreigner and this treatment led me to chuckle to myself upon seeing a bar that was open to “natives only”. Make no mistake, today’s Japan still has its problems when it comes to human rights. Another person I met there observed that Japan hid behind a mask of politeness. It is hard to get a true read on anyone because of this.

Hmm, kind of hesitant to publish this under my true name. If you’re a government agent, please don’t kick me out. I really like being here. Much obliged.

Anything, I have to say after this seems sort of pointless. Let me just say this: for everyone reading this, you are very lucky. There are places in life that we have been fortunate enough to be ignorant of, but it is this very ignorance that blinds us to the fortunes of others. You know how this speech runs. Just be aware and do what you can.