Sharon Blankenbaker is officially my favorite aunt

In other news, I've switched over to a new version of Blogger simply because I could, but it's in the "beta" (not quite finished but basically functional) stage. Hopefully that doesn't cause any explosions or anything.

I could probably make this entry longer if I wanted, with observations and whatnot about Nihon, but there's nothing pressing on my mind, or any important news. However, I have a rather ambitious idea for an entry brewing, so be on the lookout in the future (next-weekish) for that. Till then, if anything big happens here, of course you will all hear about it.

Just 3 and a half weeks till I get to see some of you, and 5 weeks for almost everyone else. Be excited.

My PlayStation 3 Hums To Life

Yep.

And to answer someone's question, this will play all US PS3 game discs, save for those locked by the developer. Due to MPAA restrictions however, it cannot play US region DVDs or Blu-ray, just Japan region. It is also backwards compatible with Japanese PS2 and PS1 games, but not US ones. Considering I already have US and JP PS2's, non of this is a problem for me.

Yup, Tokyo is pretty sweet

Yesterday I went on my epic adventure to Tokyo in order to see The Mars Volta, or as I'm going to call them, The Greatest Band There Is, Was, Or Ever Will Be (TGBTIWOEWB for short). Everything was meticulously planned in advance. I had found directions to the train station nearest the venue. All directions in Japan are, in fact, done in relation to train stations, since there are no street names, and addresses are done in three numbers, for example 1-2-3, the first being Ward, then some foggy small-area-related term, then which building it is in the area, in chronological order of construction. In other words, a useless address system. I also had directions to the apartment of the Rakocy's, a Winnetka family that generously extended their hospitality to me. The school day was all review, so I decided to take the whole day off, leaving room to either make mistakes or do some additional exploring of the city. Ultimately, it would be an incredible outing.

I took pictures and a couple of videos throughout the trip, in order to more fully immerse readers in my experiences.

The day started well when I arose at 9.

What you cannot see in the above picture is that I am also nude. By 10 o clock, I had cleaned up and eaten a delicious bowl of Cocoa Crispies, and was ready to go.

Or so I thought. Things I would not remember until it was too late:

-iPod (traveling without it is a horrible punishment no human should have to endure)
-Rakocy's phone number (rendering my borrowed cell phone useless and leading to problems down the road)
-Box of Chocolates that was going to be a present for the Rakocy's (forgot about this until I was nearly at their apartment, and I felt TERRIBLE about it)

So that aside, I set off with tickets in hand and a keen sense for adventure. I bought my Shinkansen tickets ahead of time, so I just needed to get to Nagoya by 11:47 and things would be OK. They were, although I accidentally got on the Local train from Okazaki, which stops everywhere, so I got off at one of the major stops in order to wait for a faster line. This would turn out to be one of my many Great Ideas, as the Local stopped for a long time after I got off, so I saved myself a lot of time. Eventually, I would make it to Nagoya with time to spare, a problem since I was reeeeeeeeally excited to get to Tokyo. Soon the Nozomi Shinkansen, one of the fastest trains in the world, arrived. Here is the nose of it as it pulls up:



And a view of the lengthy behemoth:



I found my seat and was all settled to go, when my iPod's absence made itself clear. No matter, the countryside is fairly interesting to observe, and I always have my textbooks to study (yay!!). I noted earlier that the Nozomi is one of the fastest trains in the world. This is a fact, and I thought I might give you a taste. The train goes about 200 k/h, which is really freaking fast, although it's not light speed, so don't expect everything to be a blur. Just think about how fast terrain goes past when you're on the highway. Then compare it to this. It is faaaaast.



So at one 1:30 I arrived in Tokyo Station, an incredibly busy and gigantic place which I took a picture of, but I tried to do so in a discreet and non-touristy way, and it came out really poorly, so you all get nothing. With plenty of time to spare, I decided to do a bit of exploring. My first destination could only be Akihibara, the electronics center of the world. I had been told that my Shinkansen ticket would be good for 3 days in the Tokyo area. However, the machine ate it, never to be returned, at Akihibara, so that was smelly. In any case, I got to Akihibara, and it ended up being the only side-destination I explored, because it is so awesome. I took a couple of pictures, but they aren't that great, and in truth no pictures or words good truly do this place justice. You must experience it for yourself.




I think you could spend 365 days in a row exploring this place and not seeing everything it has to offer. I wandered through endless alleys with stores that seemed to be bigger than the buildings containing them. Every electronic known to man--save the elusive PlayStation 3--could be found in this wonderland. Many of the stores I entered had upwards of 7 floors, each dedicated to a different "facet" of electronics, such as TV, Speakers, Movies, Music, etc. There were also massive game arcades on every block. Seriously, I had to tear myself away from this place. Surprisingly, my spending was relatively restrained, mostly due to the fact that I only had one backpack in which to carry things. I found a store selling a 10 megapixel digital camera for under ¥40000, or about $350, and I stared long and hard at it, but stopped myself. I did find a movie store however, that had a whole section devoted to Miyazaki Hayao, with all of his movies and their soundtracks, plus toys etc, and I just had to complete my Japanese collection. Since I know the kanji for english, I could see that they had english language support too, which is wonderful. For those of you who have no idea who I'm talking, go to a movie store, ask someone or search their computer for "Miyazaki" and buy, don't rent, every movie that comes up. I don't even like anime (japanenese animation), but every last one of his films, all anime, are beautiful, heart-warming masterpieces that put Disney's best to shame, and will all be on your favorites last after you watch them. I guarantee it.

So, I managed to somehow leave behind this wonderland sometime after 3, where I followed directions to Odaiba, the district where the concert would take place. This meant taking an extremely crowded train


and a monorail

(picture of monorail station)
over a river, on a bridge that is modeled directly after the Brooklyn Bridge, with a spectacular view of the city.








Right in the middle of that last picture is a mini-model of the Statue of Liberty. In other news, I love the Japanese.

I had been told that my stop in Odaiba was right near the venue of the concert, the Zepp Tokyo. Conveniently, it wasn't just near, it was the first thing I saw, making my life really easy.







Worth noting is that the awesome ferris wheel seen in these pictures is right behind the Zepp, literally 50 feet away. Add in a lot of cool shops, entertainment and an apparently famous mall, and you've got the winning combination for a pretty awesome area.

At 5, I found my way to the main entrance, where I met a Mars Volta fan from New Zealand, Lauren, who has lived and worked in Japan for 6 years, and we went to the previously noted mall for a drink before the show, and had an interesting chat about New Zealand, America, Japan, Gaijins, and life in general. We were forced to part ways, likely never to see eaach other again, when it was discovered that our tickets were numbered, and they were grouping people by numbers in order to make for non-chaotic access to the venue. Good thing I didn't show up hours in advance to wait in line. Here, however, I met a Malaysian guy and a french girl, fellow students in Japan who were lucky enough to be in the country when a great band came through.

The concert itself was suitably amazing, with the band playing a setlist of only 4 songs, but non of them were less than 10 minutes long, and one which was completely improvised for well over an hour, and featured some pretty incredible moments, ranging to beautiful interaction between the guitarist and vocalist



to the vocalist singing through a fan, imitating Tommy Boy imitating Darth Vader, to 2 wicked bass solos to a bongo solo, to the vocalist standing on a platform behind the drummer, singing like he would never be allowed to again.



It was a fabulous night, and the whole day had been well worth the trip. Then the hunt for the Rakocy Apartment began. Following directions that I copied from an email from Diane Rakocy, I got to their district via the excellent train system just fine, and in turn managed to get to the general block where they lived while only taking one wrong turn. But, it seems, I had written down the word "left" too many times, as I first went totally in a circle, then down many different streets to dead ends and other areas that generally did not fit the description I had been given. I was soon convinced that a direction had been flipped somewhere, right instead of left, and soon just was going down every street possible, without straying far from the area I knew I needed to be in. After a frustrating length of time lasting who knows how long, I finally found it, the "Classy House," home to the Rakocy Apartment.




Though her husband was still out and her kids were either asleep or also away, Diane was extremely welcoming, doubling my guilt in forgetting their gift. We talked about Japan and the North Shore and other various topics for an hour or so, until her husband showed up. My conversation with him that night was brief, mostly an introduction, but I really enjoyed their company. One horribly awkward moment for me: I have been working hard since July at trying to be as straightforward and nonchalant as possible when telling people that I will be attending Harvard (starting with only telling when asked), because I feel like showing any emotion whatsoever while uttering that one single name will make it sound like I am gloating and full of myself. Yes, I am very proud and excited to be going to one of the most highly regarded schools in the world, but I really want being given the "Harvard Boy" stereotype (I'll let you decide what that is). For the most part, I've gotten really good at this skill. However, things did not go so well here. My delivery of the word was satisfyingly stoic, but Mr. Rakocy's immediate reaction afterwards was hysterical, one of the funniest looks of shock I have ever seen in my life, and an expasperated "really!?" I could not, despite my best efforts, stoop myself from laughing, at his reaction, not at my maniacal, egotistical joy, but laughing after such a bold statement makes me immediately feel like it was for the latter reason. So after trying to surpress my laughter and giving a sheepish yeah, I felt thoroughly embarrased and excused myself to bed. Their son Robert was out, so I was given his bed, which was quite comfy, and if all goes according to Mr. Rakocy's plan, the magic scholar pixie-dust that I am supposed to give off should have sprinkled onto Robert's bed and granted him access to Harvard in 2 years.

The next morning, I arose refreshed, and stepped on the first scale I have seen since arriving in Japan, and it was in pounds, thank god. I've said before that I know I am thinner, but even this surprised me. Thursday before I left for Japan, I weighed in during my physical with Dr. Weinstein at 184 pounds in my boxers. This morning, nearly 9 weeks later (8 and a half after a massive Chuckwagon-Sarkis-Buff Joe's going-away triple-feast) I weighed in at 166.5 pounds in my boxers. That is a lot of weight to say "sayounara" to in a short period of time. It's official: if you want a diet that truly works, just come and live in Japan.

My plan was to get an early start and make my last few classes, but I was enjoying the company of the Rakocy's so much that I stayed until past 11, at which point they needed to prepare for their vacation to Hong Kong, which they left for this afternoon. Hilariously, I have got Mr. Rakocy hardcore psyched to try and convince his kids to dive when they return to New Trier because it will be instant access to great schools. Even more hilariously, I was 100% telling the truth. As some of my friends and family could attest, as long as you train off-season, diving = college admissions magic. It's science.

So at last, we said our goodbyes, Diane gave me cookies, making me feel-triple guilty for forgetting the chocolates (I had at this point apologized profusely many times), we took a nice picture,

and Diane gave me a ride to the station, at which point my trip home was completely smoothe. Altogether it was an absolutely amazing trip, and I am eager to return to Tokyo soon.

One final picture upon return to my apartment, for comparison's sake:



I was tired.

An incredibly long-overdue update

Yes, I know I have been gone a long while, and I am sorry. I genuinely have much less time/opportunities to provide the content-filled updates that meet my standards of quality, plus occasionally when I do have time, I go "mehhh" and then don't update. So, yeah. Gomennasai (figure that one out on your own). Obviously, in a 8 days time I have accumulated much to write about, enough at least that I definitely won't remember it all right now. But I will do my best.

MINNA NO NIHONGO: BOOK 1 COMPLETE

"Minna no Nihongo" (Japanese for Everyone) is the main textbook that we use in the SILAC program at Yamasa. It is divided into two separate books of 25 chapters each. On Wednesday, we finished Book 1. Now, you are all likely familiar with how difficult it has been to learn Japanese, though I persevere. Well, in Book 2, they crank it up to 11. I'd say we average 2 times the amount of vocabulary a night, and we are starting to occasionally hit multiple lessons a day, jumping around and skipping chapters, whereas we did one chapter a day in Book 1 straight through, with some review days snuck in there. So, everyday is now a nuclear explosion to the brain, and every night is filled with renshuu (practice) and more memorizing. That said, this is noticeably helping, as day-to-day I feel more confident in my abilities with improvements measuring much greater than in Book 1. So, hurray! It also helps that there are 2 australian girls better than everyone else in the class, and I have to try and keep up with them. Speaking of which:

AUSSIE INVASION

As noted in my last entry, there are a bunch of girls running around Yamasa now, 2 of whom are in my class. Previously, I noted that they had been allowed into Yamasa because their previously scheduled exchange program didn't happen because "someone died." The full story is less exciting than I would have hoped. They were scheduled to stay in Japanese high schools for the winter (Australia's summer), but the director of the program bought the farm, and the program dissolved 2 weeks before it was scheduled to begin. This would have been seriously disastrous to the girls' summer plans, so what remained of the program's administration struck a deal with Yamasa, and here they are.

THINGS ARE EXPENSIVE

I've noted before how my diet, alternatively known as Eating Japanese Food Always, is making me lose large amounts of weight, even if I don't have a scale to tell. But my jeans and belt don't lie, so I set out Friday after classes for Nagoya, where I could find a far better selection of clothes than in Okazaki (at least in the places I had found). The Australian girls had the same plan in mind, so we ran into each other at the train station and basically stuck together as far as the makeup section of Mitsukoshi (the oldest department store in the world, having opened its first location in 1673). At this point, I found my way to the sole men's clothes floor, where I waited to long to examine the price tags. After spending quite a bit of time with a friendly salesman (who I can communicate with on a higher-than-primitive level!), I found a couple pairs of damn good jeans, and then saw the price, which was more than I wanted it to be. I had forgotten that things are expensive in Japan, especially when compared to America. However, I really did not just want to say no, plus the jeans ruled, so I bought them, parting ways with most of the cash I had brought with me on the day. The rest of what I got was less expensive for sure, but due to lack of cash will show up on my credit card bill. So that's what those charges are, Dad.

KARAOKE

When I departed America, the word "karaoke" invoked images in my head of bars and parties, with a television screen displaying scrolling lyrics and some probably-drunk sucker making a fool of him/herself in front of many snickering onlookers. But Enter the Japanese. Here, karaoke is immensely popular, and rightfully so. Instead of making a fool of your drunk self in front of a whole bar, you make a fool of your drunk self in a private room filled only with other drunk people doing, or about to do, exactly the same thing. Of course, that's not the real reason it's popular. In truth, everyone does Karaoke because you can show up at 8 or 9 at night, reserve a room till 6 the next morning for 3000 yen a person, and it's free drinks the whole night. And with the amount of alcohol asians ingest, they can almost always put back more than 3000 yen worth of beer or sake over the course of 8 or so hours. Since I'm not one to partake in such outlandishly unhealthy indulgences, I just tag along, have a couple glasses of Kirin, just enough to be happy, and then the mood of the room is enough to make the night completely entertaining.

WHY IS THE MOVIE THEATER 40 MINUTES AWAY AND IN A SMALLER TOWN?

There are movies that have come out in America out that I really want to see, namely The Departed, The Prestige, and Casino Royale, and they tend to see a subtitled release in Japan within a couple of weeks. But the movie theater is sooo far away and no one ever seems to have the time to go. Ugh.

ON AN UNRELATED NOTE, APPARENTLY GERMANY IS A PORTAL TO A COMPLETELY ISOLATED DIMENSION

Since Chris, my german friend, had not heard of an iPod before last week, or iTunes, ever in his life. Huh?

OTHER STORIES FROM NAGOYA THAT I JUST REMEMBERED

We had lunch in Nagoya last friday, at one of the many local restaurants famous for fried pork with miso sauce. Miso sauce, of course, being the sauce form of Miso Soup. I'm not sure how this is accomplished, but the result is defiinitely something to write home about, seing as I have done just that with this sentence. Also worth noting from that restaurant is that have of my tray was occupied by six small saucers with various salts inside. The presentation made them seem Important, but seeing as there was only a small serving of each of the six salts, and given that my meal was already delicious, I tried non of them, and then farted in the face Cultural Exposure.

Sakae is the central part of Nagoya, and is almost directly equatable with the Magnificent Mile, only probably more expensive since it is in Japan. This is where Mitsukoshi was, where Skatie will most want to come if she visits (hint: come visit, Skatie, and anyone else, for that matter), and also where I found a Gap. One of the things that I liked about Gap was that it was familiar, although many of the brands within the other department stores were as well, and also that their Japanese Advertisements actually featured japanese models, whereas most advertisements in Japan are plastered with Western faces, often notable western faces (i.e. Tommy Lee Jones as noted in one of my first entries, and Cameron Diaz, the face of the SoftBank cellphone store franchise). Fitting that an American company would reverse the trend. Also, inside of this Gap was an employee who like generally white and not asian, which was weird because it is notoriously difficult to get a non-teaching job as a gaijin. Close observation revealed a Japanese nametag, as well as extremely limited english with a thick japanese accent, so I guess she will just remain an ethnic question mark.

The train ride on the way home was so insanely crowded that there was a formal line for each door to get into the train, and then once you were there you had exactly negative three centimeters of space to occupy. When the train stopped, if you did not aggressively act otherwise, you would be swept off the train by the general flow of bodies. Craziness.

COMING SOON

This week is the most important week of my entire tenure in Japan, because tomorrow and friday I am seeing the Mars Volta live, tomorrow's show being in that mystical, magical wonderland known as Tokyo (which should technically be spelled Toukyou). My trusty Digital Camera shall accompany me, and since tomorrow is review in class, I have decided to take the whole day off in order to get to Tokyo earlier. Apparently, it will be easy to switch my reserved Shinkansen tickets. This will give me ample time to find the venue, as well as check out the neighborhood it's in, Odaiba, which is supposed to be the most popular area for my age group. Also worth checking out is Akihibara, which is basically all electronic stores, and 90% of the reason why people view Japan as technologically in the future.

I promise to blog about all of that in at least some capacity.

Yesterday's post, continued

Come now, you didn't honestly think that my rants about the difficulty of Japanese would be the only thing to commemorate my 6 weeks here, did you? There are other, non-academic-type topics to discuss. The first and most important topic being the new students that have joined my class since I last described my classmates 2 weeks ago.

Initially, we had 4 new students: Dale, Albert, Robert, and Chin. Robert, a 23-year-old African-American from LA, had not passed the test to move on, and was bumped back to our class. However, he quickly retook and passed said test (which, incidentally, I have also now passed), and moved out of our class within a few days. The rest stayed, however.

Dale is also a 23 year old American, from Colorado. Dale is half-Japanese and majored in Japanese at Colorado University. Incidentally, he was also a fencer. Though he (basically) understands the language, his speaking is not so good, so he is with us. This is not a problem for me, as he is a great guy, and spends a lot of time with Christian and myself. He is the only one besides Christian and I with perfect Movie Night attendance, and also went to the Wii expo with me. The other day, he was with me and Chris when we explored a traditional-looking Japanese restaurant. Here, we ordered beef and chicken, which the chef told us would be fresh. Turns out fresh me raw. That was no problem for us, since we are men and ate it all. With a sweet soy sauce, it was actually quite good. Also worth noting is that Dale is happily married, something he accomplished right after college. This really surprised our teacher, which made for an amusing 5 minutes the other day.

Albert is a 22-year-old Carnegie Mellon student who hails from Korea but did high school in California. He has attended Yamasa before, but came back because he wanted to learn more. A generally high-spirited fellow, Albert only comes to class every other day or so, since he goes out drinking every with his Korean friends who were about leave, and his roommate snores too loudly for him to fall asleep. However, when he is at school, he is a lot of fun to hang out with, and he always comes with us to the Magical Udon Restaurant of Joy and Rainbows and General Happiness. I'm fairly certain that he and Dale are both at Yamasa until Christmas, like me.

Chin is from Taiwan, and I know she is a 30-year-old nurse, but that is about all I know. Damn language barriers. She seems nice, though. Oh, now that I am thinking of it, Oo-san, the original Chinese girl from our class, opted to drop down a class, because she is having trouble keeping up. Sayoonara, Oo-san, you always liked to laugh a lot (actually that sounds to permanent-farewell-ish. I see her everyday across the hall).

On friday, a new SILAC session brought new students, the australians Colleen and Anthea. They looked about my age, but not much older, so I figured they were taking a year off, since 18 is the minimum age for Yamasa, or 16 if you are intermediate (which we are not). Imagine my surprise, then, to learn that they were both 15 (though Colleen is about to turn 16). Apparently they were allowed in cause they are on some manner of exchange program, scheduled to go to a different place in Nihon, but, in Anthea's words "someone died there," so they were sent here instead. Huh.

As far as the rest of life is concerned, things are going quite well, as far as I can tell. I don't opt to go to Nagoya all the time and hardcore party at the clubs, like some students to, although we do have an event tentatively planned for tomorrow. For the most part, I just try to relax when I am not cramming language into my brain, and get out to try and speak Japanese, which is an awfully slow process right now.

Japan is starting have noticeable influences on me, too. I am now accustomed to saying "hai" instead of "yes," "sou desuka" and instead "I see," "daijoubu desu" instead of "it's ok," and other mannerisms like that. Every movie night, we watch at least one Japanese film. Japanese films are really quite different, since the way the Japanese display (or rather don't display) emotions is quite different from the Western customs, and Japanese filmmakers tend to spend as much time focusing on natural beauty as they do on plot. This makes the movies quite odd at first, but once you get used to it, it's quite a beautiful thing. We watched a movie called "April Story" the other day, which was a short 65 minutes, but was an excellent Japanese film, and I could understand a lot of it, which excited me. It's from the same director as "Love Letter" which I have described in a previous entry, and is not available in the US, so I will make an effort to find a subtitled version to take home with me.

Even the music here is growing on me. J-pop, often laughed at in America, deserves to be laughed at, because it is stupid. However, there are some popular Japanese artits that don't fit into the traditional J-Pop genre. Most notably is the mega-popular Shiina Ringo, who has songs from just about every possible genre of music. Therefore, she has songs that I don't really care for but, at the same time, many songs that I do. Her voice threw me off at first, but I've quickly come to love it. She is an extremely talented musician, writing, arranging, and singing all of her material. The CD that grabbed my attention is called "Karuku Samen Kuri no Hana" (literally "Chalk, Semen, Chestunut Flowers." Yay Japanese!), which struck at first for being so different and intersting, but distinctively odd and Japanese sounding. Since then, it has grown to be pretty much wholly amazing, a beautiful CD that has a sort of hypnotic effect over me, even if the lyrics are in super-old-fashioned Japanese that I will only understand with years of specialized study. I have since then snatched up much of her other work, none of which is as good as the CD I just described, but all of which grows on me with each listen.

Alright, it's late-o-clock, and I'm not sure if I'm supposed to study chapter 22 or 23, since nothing was explicitly made clear, but I shall memorize the massive chapter 23 vocab list and hope for the best. Oyasumi.

Half-way there (well, more like a quarter really)

This past tuesday marked the end of my 6th week in Japan, Thursday the end of my 6th week of classes. With 12 weeks of classes total, and an exit flight scheduled for December 23, I have reached the halfway point of my studies here at Yamasa. Or have I? In fact, today I got myself signed up for another 3 months, lasting from January 25th to April 18th. The Adventure Time Party continues!

Smart people with brains that have good memories will recall that originally I had a different program in mind for the Winter/Spring "semester." This program would have had an emphasis on collegiate-level study of Japanese Culture and History, which is fine with me, except that you only take 3 classes of Japanese a week, which is waaaay insufficient for my burning desire to comfortably speak this language, since Japanese is HARD. We're talking English-hard, and English is notoriously clunky, difficult, and generally stupid. The big difference between Japanese and English is that Japanese replaces clunkiness with beauty, and stupidity with severe oddity.

I'll explain the beauty part first. Japanese has always sounded really silly to most Americans I know, including myself. However, as I got here and started to learn and experience, my thoughts quickly changed. In Japanese, word pronounciation is set up to make sentences flow as nicely as possible, and the general construction of each word really puts the focus on the sound of the vowel instead of the type of consonant. Throw in the fact that the 5 vowel sounds used, ah ee uu eh oh, are about the five nicest vowel sounds you could choose from, and you end up with a language that really focuses on sounding pleasant and making sense to the ears. This is in opposition to english, which throws consonants and horrible vowel sounds (think the "a" sound from "and" and "can't"), and ends up being clunky and silly sounding, when you think about it.

But enough praise. Japanese is hard. Really, really hard. In fact, everyone hear who has studied multiple languages, including people like Christian, who has studied German, English, French, and Chinese to fluency, calls Japanese the most difficult language they have studied by a huge margin. The reason for this is not because of how you say the words, but how the words come together. I'd always heard that Chinese was hard due to the various "tones" you can use for each vowel, but Japanese is a whole different beast. It cares nothing for tones, and is in fact quite a flat language, phrase-wise. This makes accents so easy that anyone who studies Japanese to fluency will have a mostly indistinguishable non-regional accent. The variations you get from place to place in Japan end up being where you place emphasis on your words and actual word choice, giving a whole new definition to the word "accent."

But whereas Chinese has, according to Christian, a relatively easy grammar system to learn, Japanese grammar is hard, and then harder. Let's start as broad as possible. There are two hugely different ways to speak Japanese: formal style and plain style. They are used for exactly what they sound like. Everyone speaks plain style, and formal is reserved for talking with important superiors, and to strangers (although strangers tend to speak plain style anyways). Formal style and plain style are worlds apart. In formal style, the base ending of all verbs is "masu." In plain style, the base ending of verbs is changes depending on the conjugation. In first conjugation, which is most of the verbs in Japanese, you take the vowel before, which is always "i," and change it to "u." In second conjugation, which is all the verbs that end in "emasu" in formal style, as well as other excpetions that you have to memorize, you replace "masu" with "ru." In third conjugation, which is the verbs "shimasu" and "kimasu" exclusively, you use "suru" and "kuru." Sounds complicated, and it is, although by learning formal style first, plain style verbs are really quite easy to master.

The trickery really heats up when you get to actual sentence structure. The first time you take a foreign language, which will almost always be a germanic or romantic language, you are told that there are 2 types of languages: ones based on word ending (romantic and a lot of other languages), and ones based on word order (english and some other languages). Well, Japanese is both. And neither. See, isn't this fun already? You already know that verbs are based on endings, although thankfully, there are only 4 endings per style. In Japanese, there is no distinction between singular and plural. No need for an ending there. There is also no distinction between present and future. No need for different endings there, either. Basically, it boils down to 4 combinations: Positive and negative versions of past and non-past verbs. I won't explain the endings, since you don't need to know them, I'm just trying to convey difficulty.

Adjectives also follow this rule. In fact, adjectives often function like verbs, and sometimes vice versa. Wheeeeeeeeee! So there are 4 of the same combinations of endings explained for adjectives. But wait, there's actually more! There are two types of adjectives. Those that end in "i" and those that end in "na" if and only if they directly precede the nouns they modify (this will not happen ever if the adjective functions like a verb, which happens far too frequently). The combinations of endings are totally different for each group of adjectives.

Thankfully, nouns are just nouns, adverbs just adverbs, and everything else also just has one ending. This is where order comes into play. In a basic sentence kernel (ignoring all of the extra modifiers in sentences), the order is subject-object-verb. Verbs always, always, always come last. Never do verbs not come last. This is very important. However, just as important as order is particles. Particles are monosyllabic sounds that end each and every noun. The two most crucial particles are "wa" (mysteriously spelled using the "ha" character for no reason) and "o." "Wa" indicates the subject, and "o" the object.

Let us use this knowledge to construct a basic sentence kernel. Because it is what everyone speaks, I'll use plain form. "I eat rice" in Japanese is "Boku wa gohan o taberu."

Now immediately I must point out that I forgot that there are weird rules for what you are allowed to say. In Japanese, "I" is "watashi," and that's what everyone would say in formal style, but in plain form, men are supposed to say "boku," and there are more special cases like this for other words. Sorry, women, you don't have special exceptions, since you are considered inferior in Japan. That's life.

In any case, in that sentence "boku" was followed by "wa" to indicate that it was the subject. "Tegami" was followed by "o" to indicate that it was the object. And so on and so forth.

New basic sentence: "I go to school." "Boku wa gakkou e iku."

I've thrown in a new kink here, because when you are using a verb indicating movement to a place, that place is followed by the particle "e" (spelled using the "he" symbol, again for no reason). Yay!

Let's add some rules. Modifiers come before the modified word(s). "Everday, I quickly go to good school." "Mainichi boku wa ii gakkou e hayaku iru." So, what word means what? From the rule I explained, you should be able to deduce this. "Everyday" modifies the whole sentence, so it must go first. "Good" must come before "school," and "quickly" before "go." Okay, so this isn't that bad, right?

Wrong. Now, I will introduce the particles "de" and "ni." "De" is used to indicate something that you use to complete an action, or to indicate where an action takes place (with one exception). "Ni," or as I'm going to call it, "satan," is used for EVERYTHING ELSE. Seriously, "ni" is one versatile mother******. This might seem good, except that it will always have you second-guessing yourself. Furthermore, the exception with "de" that I hinted about will cause your brain to explode when trying to figure out which particle to use. You use "de" to explain where you do an action in. "Ni" describes where you do an action at. Sound like the same thing? That's because it is. Except, to the Japanese it isn't. The sentence "We watched a movie in my room" would be "watashitachi wa boku no heya de eiga o mita" (Oops, forgot to explain "no." It's easy enough. "No" indicates possession, at the order is always possessor no possessee). However, "We watched a movie at my house" would be "watashitachi wa boku no uchi ni eiga o mita." Arrrrrrrrrgh.

Eventually, you might actually get the hang of the particles. Then the crazy sentence constructions occur. And they are ridiculous. I'm not going to give the Japanese, I will just explain with the English counterparts. Most of the sentence constructions involve adding an ending to a verb ending (verb endings themselves conjugate like adjectives) and then some mind-bending phrase. When asking for permission, or if someone has something, or anything like that where you are fishing for a yes or no answer, you ask the question in a superfluously fluffy manner, and usually with a negative verb (do you not have, will you not go, etc). To add a modifying clause (in english this would involve inserting a "that" or "would" into the sentence), you put the clause first, change all wa's to ga's, use the plain form verb even if speaking formally, and then do the main sentence. Often, the Japanese use this construction when it is totally redundant or unnecessary. Perhaps my favorite is "must." There appears to be no direct equivalent to "must" in Japanese (this happens a lot). Instead, the Japanese say "there have no choice but to," and the ending consturction used to say this is quite literally a tongue twisted. I challenge you to say "nakeriba narimasen" 3 times fast.

And all that is only a taste of the wonders of Japanese. I haven't even gotten to the verb "to be," which is irregular in pretty much every language known to man. Well, in Japanese, it is irregularly irregular, but it is almost 4 AM, so I'm not going to explain it. Instead, I'm going to stare at my eyelids. Ask me about it the next time you see me.

Okay, so if it sounds like I'm venting, I'm not...really. Venting would imply negative stress, which is not the case. I'm simultaneously trying to convety the difficulty, as well as challenge myself to see how much I can remember, since such reminders are constantly necessary in the quest for long-term memory of a language. The fact is, I love that it is so unique and difficult, because it will make mastering the language that much more satisfying. In a mere 6 weeks, I have learned an absolute truckload, as you can see, so imagine what I can do in 6 months. That is the reason why I am opting to double my length of study an Okazaki, and hopefully do a homestay in the process, since learning the concepts isn't much of a problem for me, but getting comfortable in conversation is, and a homestay would be a great way to remedy that. So, yeah.

Taken from http://pepper.idge.net/japanese/

So You Want To Learn Japanese

You've eaten at a few Japanese restaurants, seen some anime, hosted an exchange student, and had a Japanese girlfriend. And now, somewhere in the back of your tiny brain, you think that Japanese would be a good language to learn. Hey, you could translate video games! Or Manga! Or even Anime! Pick up Japanese girls, impress your friends! Maybe you'll even go to Japan and become an anime artist! Yeah! Sounds like a great idea!

So you head down to the library, pick up some books with titles like "How To Teach Yourself Japanes In Just 5 Seconds A Day While Driving Your Car To And From The Post Office" and "Japanese For Complete And Total, Utter Fools Who Should Never Procreate". Hey, you already know a few words from your manga collection/girlfriend/anime. Excited and impressed with your new knowledge, you begin to think: "Hey. Maybe, just maybe, i could do this for a living! Or even major in Japanese! Great Idea, Right?
WRONG

I don't care how many anime tapes you've watched, how many Japanese girlfriends you've had, or books you've read, You don't know Japanese. Not only that, majoring in the godforsaken language is NOT fun or even remotely sensible. Iraqi war prisoners are often forced to major in Japanese. The term "Holocaust" comes from the Latin roots "Holi" and "Causm", meaning "to major in Japanese". You get the idea.

And so, sick of seeing so many lambs run eagerly to the slaughter, I have created This Guide to REAL TIPS for Studying Japanese. Or, as is actually the case, NOT studying it.
Reason One: It's Too Hard

This should be an obvious.

Despite what many language books, friends, or online tutorials may have told you, Japanese is NOT simple, easy, or even sensical (Japanese vocabulary is determined by throwing tiny pieces of sushi at a dart board with several random syllables attatched to it). TheJapanese spread these rumours to draw foolish Gaijin into their clutches.

Not only is it not simple, it's probably one of the hardest language you could ever want to learn. With THREE completely different written languages (none of which make sense), multitude of useless, confusing politeness levels, and absolutely insane grammatical structure, Japanese has been crushing the souls of the pathetic Gaijin since it's conception. Let's go over some of these elements mentioned above so you can get a better idea of what I mean.
The Japanese Writing System

The Japanese writing system is broken down into three separate, complete, and insane, parts: Hiragana ("those squiggily letters"), Katakana ("those boxy letters") and Kanji ("roughly 4 million embodiments of your worst nightmares").

Hiragana is used to spell out Japanese words using syllables. It consist of many letters, all of which look completely different and bear absolutely no resemblance to each other whatsoever. Hiragana were devloped by having a bunch of completely blind, deaf, and dumb Japanese people scribble things on pieces of paper while having no idea why they were doing so. The resulting designs were then called "hiaragana". The prince who invented these characters, Yorimushi("stinking monkey-bush-donkey") was promptly bludgeoned to death. But don't worry, because you'll hardly use Hiragana in "real life".

Katakana are used only to spell out foreign words in a thick, crippling japanese accent, so that you'll have no idea what you're saying even though it's in English. However, if you remember one simple rule for Katakana, you'll find reading Japanese much easier: Whenever something is written in Katakana, it's an English word! (note: Katakana is also used for non-english foreign words. And sound effects, and Japanese words). Katakana all look exactly the same, and it's impossible, even for Japanese people, to tell them apart. No need to worry, because you'll hardly ever have to read Katakana in "real life".

Kanji are letters that were stolen from China. Every time the Japanese invaded China (which was very often) they'd just take a few more letters, so now they have an estimated 400 gazillion of them. Kanji each consist of several "strokes", which must be written in a specific order, and convey a specific meaning, like "horse", or "girl". Not only that, but Kanji can combined to form new words. For example, if you combine the Kanji for "small", and "woman", you get the word "carbeurator". Kanji also have different pronounciations depending on where they are in the word, how old you are, and what day it is. When European settlers first came upon Japan, the Japanese scholars suggested that Europse adopt the Japanese written language as a "universal" language understood by all parties. This was the cause of World War 2 several years later. Don't worry, however, since you'll never have to use kanji in "real life", since most Japanese gave up on reading a long, long time ago, and now spend most of their time playing Pokemon.
Politeness Levels

Politness Levels have their root in an ancient Japanese tradition of absolute obedience and conformity, a social caste system, and complete respect for arbitrary heirarchical authority, which many American companies believe will be very helpful when applied as magaerial techniques. They're right, of course, but no one is very happy about it.

Depending on who you are speaking to your politeness level will be very different. Politeness depends on many things, such as age of the speaker, age of the person being spoken Prepare to be laughed at to, time of day, zodiac sign, blood type, sex, whether they are Grass or Rock Pokemon type, color of pants, and so on. For an example of Politness Levels in action, see the example below.
Japanese Teacher: Good morning, Harry.
Harry: Good Morning.
Japanese Classmates: (gasps of horror and shock)

The bottom line is that Politeness Levels are completely beyond your understanding, so don't even try. Just resign yourself to talking like a little girl for the rest of your life and hope to God that no one beats you up.
Grammatical Structure

The Japanese have what could be called an "interesting" grammatical structure, but could also be called "confusing", "random", "bogus" or "evil". To truly understand this, let's examine the differences between Japanese and English grammar.
English Sentence:
Jane went to the school.

Same Sentence In Japanese:
School Jane To Went Monkey Apple Carbeurator.

Japanese grammar is not for the faint of heart or weak of mind. What's more, the Japanese also do not have any words for "me", "them", "him, or "her" that anyone could use without being incredibly insulting (the Japanese word for "you", for example, when written in kanji, translates to"I hope a monkey scratches your face off"). Because of this, the sentence "He just killed her!" and "I just killed her!" sound exactly the same, meaning that most people in Japan have no idea what is going on around them at any given moment. You are supposed to figure these things out from the "context", which is a German word meaning "you're screwed".
Reason Two: Japanese People

When mostAmericans think of Japanese people, they think: polite, respectful, accomadating. (They could also possibly think: Chinese). However, it is important to learn where the truth ends and our Western stereotyping begins.

Of course, it would be irresponsible of me to make any sweeping generalizations about such alarge group of people, but ALL Japanese people have three characteristics: they "speak" English, they dress very nicely, and they're short.

The Japanese school system is controlled by Japan's central government, which, of course, is not biased in any way (recent Japanese history textbook title: "White Demons Attempt To Take Aaway our Holy Motherland, But Great And Powerful Father-Emperor Deflects Them With Winds From God: The Story Of WW2"). Because of this, all Japanese have been taught the same English-language course, which consists of reading The Canterbury Tales, watching several episodes of M*A*S*H, and reading the English dictionary from cover to cover. Armed with this extensive language knowledge, the children of Japan emerge from school ready to take part in international business and affairs, uttering such remarkable and memorable sentences as "You have no chance to survive make your time", and adding to their own products by inscribing english slogans, such as "Just give this a Paul. It may be the Paul of your life" on the side of a slot machine.

Secondly, all Japanese people dress extremely well. This fits in with the larger Japanese attitude of neatness and order. Everything has to be in it's correct place with the Japanese, or a small section in the right lobe of their brain begins to have seizures and they exhibit erratic violent behavior until the messiness is eradicated. The Japanese even FOLD THEIR DIRTY CLOTHES. Sloppiness is not tolerated in Japanese society, and someone with a small wrinkle in their shirt, which they thought they could hide by wearing a hooded sweatshirt over it (possibly emblazoned with a catchy english phrase like "Spread Beaver, Violence Jack-Off!"), will be promptly beaten to death with tiny cellular phones.

Lastly, the Japanese are all short. Really, really short. It's kind of funny. Not ones to leave being tall to the Europeans or Africans, however, the Japanese have singlehandedly brought shoes with incredibly gigantic soles into style, so that they can finally appear to be of actual human height, when in reality their height suggests that they may indeed be closer in relation to the race of dwarves or Hobbits.

Japanese culture is also very "interesting", by which we mean "confusing" and in several cases "dangerous". Their culture is based on the concept of "In Group/Out Group", in which all Japanese people are one big "In" group, and YOU are the "Out" group. Besides this sense of alienation, Japan also produces cartoons, and a wide variety of other consumer products which are crammed into your face 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The Japanese also like cock fighting monsters that live in your pants, taking baths with the elderly, and killing themselves.

Japanese food is what some people would call "exotic", but what most people call "disgusting", or perhaps, in some areas, "whack". Japanese food evolved in ancient days, when the main staple of the diet was rice. People got so sick and tired of eating rice, in fact, that they ate just about anything else they could find, from seaweed to other Japanese people. This has led to the creation of such wonderful foods as "Natto", which I believe is a kind of bean but tastes like battery acid, and "Pocky", which is a stick with different frostings on it, the flavors of which include Sawdust and Strawberry.

Despite this variety of foods, however, the Japanese have succeeded in making every single thing they eat, from tea to plums, taste like smokey beef.
Reason Three: Your Classmates

As if learning the language wasn't hard enough, Japanese classes in America tend to attract the kind of student who makes you wish that a large comet would strike the earth. There are a few basic type of students that you'll always find yourself running into. These include The Anime Freak, The Know It All, and the Deer Caught In Headlights.

The Anime Freak is probably the most common, and one of the most annoying. You can usually spot a few warning signs to let you identify them before it's too late: they wear the same exact Evangelion shirt every day, they have more than one anime key chain on their person, they wear glasses, they say phrases in Japanese that hey obviously don't understand (such as "Yes! I will never forgive you!"), they refer to you as "-chan", make obscure Japanese culture references during class, and usually fail class. You have to be extremely careful not to let them smell pity or fear on you, because if they do they will immeadiately latch onto you and suck up both your time and patience, leaving only a lifeless husk. Desperate for human companionship, they will invite you to club meetings, anime showings, conventions, and all other sorts of various things you don't care about.

The Know It All typically has a Japanese girlfriend or boyfriend, and because of this "inside source" on Japanese culture, has suddenly become an academic expert on all things Japanese, without ever having read a single book on japan in their entire lives. You can usually spot Know It All's by keeping an eye out for these warning signs: a cocky smile, answering more than their share of questions, getting most questions wrong, questioning the teacher on various subjects and then arguing about the answers (a typical exchange: Student: What does "ohayoo" mean?,Teacher: It means "good morning", Student: That's not what my girlfriend said...), being wrong, talking alot about Japanese food and being wrong, giving long, unnecessarily detailed answers which are wrong, and failing class.

The Deer Caught In headlights are those students who took Japanese because either a.) they thought it sounded like fun, b.) they thought it would be easy, or c.) they just need a couple more credits to graduate. These students wear a mask of terror and panic form the moment they walk into class till the moment they leave, because all they can hear inside their head is the high pitched scream their future is making as it is flushed down the toilet. They are usually failing.

Although many of Japanese-language students are smart, funny, hard working people, none of them will be in your class.
The Bottom Line

If you can get past the difficulty, society, and classmates, you will probably find Japanese to be a fun, rewarding language to learn. We wouldn't know, however, since no one has ever gotten that far. But hey, I'm sure You're different.

Author's Note:This whole essay, although sprinkled with truisms here and there, is a joke and should be taken like one. I'm actually a Japanese major myself, and even if I've given it a bit of a hard time, I love the Japanese language, and I think everyone should give it a try.

You should just be ready for a whole lot of pain.

HAPPY LANGUAGE LEARNING!

Yoshinoya

My friends, the time has come to talk about Yoshinoya, a restaurant with which I have had a love affair for the past 6 weeks, and with which I will probably continue to have a love affair with for the next 6 (and however much time I spend in Nihon next year). Yoshinoya is a truly wonderful place. I'd say I eat about 80% of my dinners a week there on average, sometimes more, sometimes less. You see, Yoshinoya is a fast restaurant which, on top of being two blocks away, is dirt cheap, crazy delicious, and about 1000 times healthier than any fast food restaurant you will ever find in the US, and probably the world. This is one of the great things about Nihon: food here is not only extra tasty, it's extra healthy, too. On an average, I don't eat breakfast, I have Udon (thick noodle soup, and a restaurant next to Yamasa's take on it is probably one of the greatest inventions in the history of mankind, ever) for lunch, and Yoshinoya for dinner, and this is definitely reflected in my waistline, which is noticeably thinner after just 6 weeks. I have not stepped on a scale yet, but even if I did, it would be in Kilograms, which means about as much to me Czech native explaining advanced string theory using multivariable calculus in his primary language. So, I'm interested to see what the results are after when I get back to America.

Blast, I got off-topic again. Okay, on to the main event: Every night, usually between 6 and 8, I finish doing some task, usually homework or perhaps my allotted our of games if the homework is finished. By this time I am hungry and a half, so I shut down my apartment and head off on the 2-3 minute bike ride to Yoshinoya. The first few times I went, I carried out, but when I decided to have a sit down meal, the experience was so pleasant that I have done that ever since. The interior of Yoshinoya restaurants is ingeniously designed, as is typical of most things Japanese (I tried to find a picture online but got only exteriors). Basically, you walk in, and there are two long bars (as well as a couple of tables, but I never sit near them). The bars are quite wide, because in the middle there is a section for the employees to walk. Basically, imagine a snake like pattern of bar seats going from one side of the restaurant to the other. Before the bars begin, there is a place to order take-out, and on each side of the bar, there is a cash register, making payment convient for both customer and employee.

So, I come in, sit down wherever I feel like, and within a minute, an server comes with hot cup of (usually green) tea. I used to drink tea extremely seldomly, but Yoshinoya has converted me, mostly because it's rude to refuse a drink if one is provided, or to order an alternative. Simultaneously, they ask for my order. Usually, it is sufficient for me to point at the picture menu, which is taped near every third seat, and say "ookii seto kudasai" (big set meal please). Usually, they understand, but sometimes, usually in the case of a newer employee who is not familiar with me, they need to ask me what kind of meat I want. There are two options for the beef set meal, both in kanji, so I can't read, much less pronounce them, and I always just point at the first one. Once my order is understood, they go back to the kitchen, which is openly visible to the public, and quite clean. They pull no punches at Yoshinoya. It's fast, healthy, and clean, and everyone knows.

Within a couple of minutes, my meal is in front of me. The first option set meal, the one I always get, is presented on a tray. On that try is a rectangular plate with an outstanding beef dish on one side and a salad on the other, a bowl of rice, and a bowl of delicioius miso soup (which Okazaki is famous for, I might add). The meal is unbelievably tasty, and perfectly filling. Just enough to be satisfied, not so much that you have overeaten. All this for a meager ¥650 (about $5). Like I said before, it's fast, exceptionally healthy, considering that it is fast food, and "totemo oishii" (very delicious). I'm usually don't spend more then 15 or so minutes getting my meal, but they are a happy 15 minutes every time.

It's worth noting that I looked up Yoshinoya's website while trying in vain to find a picture of the inside of a restaurant, and in the process discovered that they had a US branch. This excited/surprised me, since I had never heard of them before. It turns out they are located almost entirely in California, with a handful of New York locations. They have plans for another 1000 US restaurants, so hopefully Chicago and/or Boston is on their radar. To Henry Noyes and co., if you are reading this, perhaps you have heard of Yoshinoya, and perhaps you have eaten it. If not, check it out, hopefully it's just as good in the US as it is in Nihon (at least, good from the eyes of a gaijin student looking for good cheap food in a land where just about everything is expensive).

Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

So I had quite a day yesterday. It was Culture Day in Japan, which meant no school, so I headed to Nagoya with 2 other Yamasa students, Dale and James, both 23, to a free convention that Nintendo was holding to show off its new system, the Wii (pronounced "we"). Now, I am incredibly excited for this system, particularly its killer app launch game, the Legend of Zelda, so I was looking forward to getting some good hands-on time at the convention. However, I seemed to forget that crowds, lines, and Japan go hand in hand, so I did a lot more waiting than playing. In fact, I never even got to play Zelda because of this:



When I arrived, it was 12 PM, and the show ended at 4 PM. The line for Zelda was 4 hours long. I was faced with the decision of waiting 4 hours for 10 or so minutes of time with a game I will probably be playing in a month or so, or sample a multitude of other games, getting more experience with the system. I opted for the latter.

In short, I was absolutely blown away. I know that many of my readers don't particularly care about video games, and at least one is biased and uninformedly hateful of them, but now I ask that you all listen to what I have to say, because I believe that everyone, no matter what the age or gender, should give this system a chance, as I think it has absolutely universal appeal.

Here is my reasoning: the Wii is entirely unlike video games as people know them today. Whereas every other game console is centered around overly complex experiences played using an imposing, confusing controller with two joysticks and about 10-14 buttons, the Wii's controller is shaped like a TV remote and only has one main directional pad and two main buttons.



This is quite intentional, as it is supposed to look like something friendly and familiar to all people, especially non-gamers. The crux of the controller lies in its motion sensing capabilities. Built in to the remote is a gyroscope and accelerometer, as well as an infrared sensor that knows exactly where you are pointing at the TV. The whole idea is to control the actions in the game using simple motions that are so intuitive, there is no confusion or memorization needed. Nintendo is so confident that this idea will appeal to everyone that they are including with the system a game featuring 5 separate sports (tennis, golf, bowling, baseball, and boxing) that are all controlled by manipulating the remote as if you were actually playing the game in real life. Having demoed these sports yesterday, I can honestly say that it works brilliantly. Here is a preview to help convince you:

Tennis:



Golf:



For some games, you will need to attach an additinal controller, called the Nunchaku, to the Wii remote. This has a joystick and a couple of buttons, as well as another gyroscope.


(The Wii Remote plus Nunchaku. Also shown here is the Classic Controller, which is aimed at veteran gamers who want to play the many classic Nintendo games available for download onto the Wii)

By using the 2 controllers' together, you can have an even more intuitive experience. This is best demonstrated by my favorite of the sports games that comes with Wii, the insanely fun Wii Boxing:





Obviously, the potential for variety here is basically limitless. Some games, like Boxing, were even a little bit tiring, and I know that there are a handful of excercise games in the work for the system. One of the games I was looking forward to playing but sadly was not to be found on the expo floor, was Wii Music, which features one game where you act as the conductor of an orchestra, waving you controller like a conductor's baton, and another game which uses two controllers to play a virtual drum kit. Also in the works for Japanese gamers (and potentially American) are a series of games designed to challenge and educate the brain, which is currently the hottest game genre in Japan right now for some reason. A few of the other Japan-only oddities I saw included a Shinkansen (bullet train) simulator, and some bizarre game where you just seem to eat sushi.



I promise that all of this is incredibly simple, intuitive, and fun, and I hope that I have convinced everyone to at least give the system one shot. I guarantee that you enjoy it. The Japanese have already bought into the concept, as I'd say the median age of everyone at the convention was around 30, with ages ranging from 3 to at least 70, and I saw just as many girls trying out the system as guys.

So at 4 PM, everyone was ushered outside, and by 4:30 we were on a crowded train headed back to the heart of Nagoya. With us was Brian, a nice guy that we met at Okazaki station, who attended Yamasa 5 years ago and now worked as a teacher in Nagano, Japan. When we told him are plans for the day, he got curious, and with nothing better to do, tagged along. Now that we were done with the extravaganza, we realized how hungry we all were, and other James offered to take us to Strikers, a gaijin bar he had been to before in Nagoya, which he said made a mean Bacon Cheeseburger. We readily agreed to go.

While bacon cheeseburger wasn't nearly as mean as it was hyped up to be (the bacon wasn't crispy enough for my liking), the meal on the whole was quite good and it was great to eat some good old fashioned American grease. We basically hung out at Strikers for the remainder of the evening, since everyone there was quite friendly, especially the owner, who makes sure to have at least as much fun as his customers, and has an incredible taste in music, so the speakers were never playing something unpleasant.

Also, since it is a gaijin (foreigner) bar, everyone there speaks english at a level that is at least competent. The customers were essentially a mix of mostly gaijins and a few Japanese who wanted to meet foreigners and speak English. There was an an older (I'd say late 20s-early 30s) Japanese woman there, who enjoyed everyone at the bar and offered to buy everyone a drink (The drinking age is Japan is 20 but absolutely no one cares). As always, it was quite entertaining when I turned down an offer of (free, no less) alcohol, or in this case refuse an offer more than twice (it is considered rude to accept someone else's offer to pay for something for you without first refusing the offer twice). Throughout high school, I perfected the art of Explaining That I Don't Drink And Still Being Considerd Cool Afterwards, and my technique worked even amongst the older crowd.

Another memorable moment included meeting Dean, a British fellow who had been living in Nagoya for 18 years. Upon meeting him, we introduced ourselves, and chatted for about 5 mintues. Than, he looked at me and said "James, I don't think I've formally introduced myself yet. I'm Dean," and then he extended his hand. I shook it and, chuckling, told him that we had just done this 5 minutes ago (how else would he know my name?). He looked at me funny and inquired, "Are you sure?" "Quite sure," I told him, smiling. "Had a little too much to drink tonight, Dean?" "James, I've had absolutely loads to drink. It's really quite astonishing." Although his short-term memory was therefore quite shaky, he still had the place of mind to remember where the Zepp Nagoya was, so I was able to figure out where to go to see The Mars Volta in 3 weeks. This was quite relieving, as finding anything in Japan is basically impossible, as addresses either don't exist or don't make sense.

Although the plan was initially to meet up with friends of Brian and go to a club and possibly Karaoke (which is very popular in Japan and open 24 hours a day, so everyone goes there till 5 in the morning if they miss the last train to Okazaki), but nothing seemed to come together, so we headed out in time to get the last express train home. It was an incredibly fun day and great evening, and I will certianly at some point return to that bar, if not for some delicious grease and mental rest from Japanese, than for the extremely good-looking 20-year-old Japanese girl tending the bar.

It's also worth noting that all of Okazaki and the other "suburbs" of Nagoya were definitely enjoying themselves on Culture Day, as stepping on the train was like entering an atmosphere of alcohol, because the train was positively rank with it. Also, it was extremely crowded, much more so than I've ever seen the L or anything be at home, even after a Cubs again, so I figured I'd take a picture, since everyone loves crowded Japanese places.



Also worth noting was that as the crowd thinned, the guy sitting next to me, who was also from Yamasa and met us at the bar, pointed out this guy sleeping in the chairs next to us on the train:


If you look carefully, you will notice a Spider-Man mask around his neck.

Finally, I will leave with this image. It is a picture of the back of a 6 or so year old Japanese boy who was with his mother at the train station.

Hard-off

Yes, I know, it's been like forever since I updated, and the reason for that is....because I'm lazy. At first I couldn't think of what to write of, but now there is plenty on my mind, and I haven't updated even with those thoughts in mind basically because I felt like. But, promises were made, and now I am updating, even though that means foregoing valuable sleep. Not that I will be able to sleep tonight anyways (free Nintendo expo tomorrow...sooooooo excited!).

Also, before we begin, you have probably noticed the advertisments above this post. I implore to click on all of them with haste, every time you view my blog, since every time you do I get paid money, which is good, and in fact far better than not being paid money. So please be a good reader and click. You don't even have to watch the add. Just click and then immediately go back one screen to my blog. Ka-ching, instant money for me. I promise I would do the same for you.

Okay, so I considering taking but some of the comments I made regarding my friend Christian's maturity after recent events this week. However I have instead decided to simply add the comment "more mature than I am used to friends being, but still able to laugh at and make the most childish and innappropriate jokes." I have also decided that this is a good. To explain, I must begin with another story.

Last saturday, with nothing to do, I hopped on my bike and went the opposite direction that I went on my second weekend here, or "north." I live at the southern tip of Okazaki, and biked clear out of the north end, thought "hey why stop now?" and continued all the way to Toyota. If you felt like looking that up on a map, you would know that it is a long way. After a couple hours, it started to get dark, so I turned around. After getting back into Okazaki, I passed a store I had not noticed on my way out, and I am confused as to how this happened, because the store is called, with many large signs around it to remind everyone, "HARD-OFF." Oh, you crazy Japanese. Laughing to myself, I entered to see what store could possibly warrant such an outstanding name. It turns out the name "Hard-off" is supposed to indicate hardware (and software) resale. This is a great thing, because the store was a giant warehouse, filled with cameras, movies (including a corner of unabashed hardcore pornography), CDs, LPs, LDs (yes, LaserDiscs), stereos, instruments, computers, and in the back, a place which I can only describe as Nerd Heaven, since there were bins of old video games which are impossible to find in America anymore, and next to those were stacks and stacks of old systems. I basically melted, and then cursed my inability to have the space to bring it all home with me. Seriously, go on ebay and type in "Japanese Sega Saturn." Then compare the prices that show up with the ¥500 it would cost me at Hard-off. And there were probably 15 in the store. Next to them, 5 Super Famicoms. Again, go on Ebay. You will probably see prices ranging from 100-300 dollars. And at Hard-Off they are ¥200 yen apiece. I could make a fortune if there was a way for me to bring them home. A fortune.

Anyways, back on track, come Monday everyone at Yamasa is discussing their weekends. Telling Christian about my bike trip, I mentioned the "Hard-Off" store, and he was basically laughing for the next 2 days. He basically couldn't even finish making up any of the puns he had in his head, because he would be laughing too hard. This is perfectly understandable, as the store is called "Hard-Off." Segue way to the rest of his humor for the week, which can really only be described as teenage. For example, we learned this week the word "hajimette" which means "start," "beginning," or Christians favorite, "first time." I'll leave the obvious joke to you. I'm fairly certain that all of this was brought about by his neighbors, a Japanese couple whose sex lives he has become very familiar with on account of the thin walls separating their apartments, which is a great story in and of itself (especially because a couple of weeks ago he told me about a similar situation he had when he was living in France. The details are really funny, but cannot be reposted here, so I will be happy to tell it to you in person the next time I see you, provided you are not younger than 14 or so, and are not my parents.)

Ah, so many other things to say, but it's double late and a half, and I have a big day tomorrow. I'm sure than on account of that day, and the many other things I have to tell you all about, there will be frequent updates in the future. Till then, try not to injure yourself, and maybe check out the greatest video of all time, which has been edited into my previous post. Also, click on the ads again. In fact, I recommend working into your schedule various regular points in time where you come to my blog to click on ads. It will be good for your health.

Oh, and I almost forgot. Hard-Off has a great jingle that plays every 5 minutes or so in the store. It goes "Yonde kudasai, Haad-Off, Haad-Off" which translates literally to "Please read, Hard-Off, Hard-Off."

UPDATE/EDIT: It turns out that "yonde" also means "call," which probably makes more sense than "read," although this in Japan we're talking about, so you never know.