JavaJunkee.com

More Japan Updates

2008-12-30T07:58:00.000-08:00

We started off our week bright and early, catching a 6:30 train into Tokyo for Yuka's Monday-morning Visa appointment at the US Embassy. I felt like telling her about online application for an Amazon.com Visa, which gives you a decision in roughly 30 seconds, but I refrained. On the train ride into the city, we happened to spot Fuji-san for the first time this trip, looking majestic as always. When we got off the train, we found a nice little coffee shop around the corner from the embassy to have some coffee and breakfast, and I stayed there and read while she went to the appointment, which ended up taking about two and a half hours-more than two hours, fifteen minutes in a waiting room, and barely ten minutes of interview, at best. Once that was over, we made our leisurely way through town, passing through a shrine and by a couple temples on the way to Tokyo Tower. We didn't go up to the observation deck this time; even if we had wanted to, the tourist crowd was too thick for comfort. Instead, we walked through the little park nearby where I asked her to marry me nearly two years ago. We found the same spot, and I hit a knee, took her hand in mine, and asked if she still wanted to marry me. "Hmm. I guess," she said with a laugh. Works for me.

We hopped on another train, which took us out to the Tokyo Bay area. Apparently the little islands in the bay were built on landfills, so the mall we spent our afternoon wandering through was basically sitting on a huge pile of trash. We ate a late lunch at a nice little Indian place in that mall, then went and took each other's pictures with the scaled-down Statue of Liberty on the waterfront. We both agreed that Tokyo's version of Lady Liberty looks a little more bloated than the original back in NYC. We chalked it up to typical Japanese perceptions of Americans. More than once on this visit, I've heard the term "American-sized" used to refer to oversized products. I wish I could take these people to Costco; that store would probably blow their minds!

We stuck around long enough to see Tokyo Tower get all lit up as part of its 50-year anniversary celebration, followed shortly by the lighting up of the bridge over the bay in rainbow colors. The view was great, but the only pictures we got were taken with my cell phone, as Yuka's camera battery seems to have reached its end, and I left the charger for my camera in LA. Oh well.

As soon as we walked back into her house, (conveniently very close to the train station), we were told that Yuka's uncle wanted to take us out for sushi, so we should hop back on the train up to Utsunomiya. We turned right around and got back on the train, and were soon retrieved from the station by her uncle (father of the young man who works in the ramen shop we visited the other evening), who took us to the best sushi shop in Utsunomiya (possibly the whole prefecture?) for dinner. We sat at the sushi bar and had the chef just roll out all of the day's recommended items, which ended up keeping us eating for a good hour or so. Only a few pieces came that I wasn't sure I would be able to stomach, and all but one of those were actually pretty good. The one piece, though, really made me work hard against my gag reflex, and I nearly lost that battle. It was a slimy white fish eggs sort of piece that was just too much. Aside from that, it was all very delicious sashimi, including the (avert your eyes, PETA-friendly friends) kujira-whale. It was an excellent and probably very expensive meal that her uncle seemed very happy to treat us to. He and the owner of the place, who is also the head sushi chef and an avid surfer, are apparently pretty good friends.

All in all, it was a very nice day. Today we took it easy, going back to Utsunomiya to help prepare Obaa-chan's house for a nice family New Year's celebration. Yuka and I had lunch with an Utsunomiya friend I first met at the conference I came to in LA two and a half years ago. He had been in LA again in April and joined me and some other friends for some decent ramen, as authentic as you can get in LA (pretty authentic), and told me to call when I come to Japan. It was a nice lunch with pleasant conversation.

After an afternoon nap followed by a thorough deep-cleaning of Obaa-chan's home, Yuka's other uncle took us all out for burgers, Japanese style. As the family's heir apparent, he shares the house we cleaned with Obaa-chan, and seemed thrilled that the handful of us had pitched in to get the job done. The burgers were fantastic-Aussie beef-and we ran the waitress to death with requests for refills on drinks and rice. She would've really earned her tip, in my opinion, if only tipping was practiced here. Another excellent meal in great company, and now we're home to get some rest, so we can get right back into it tomorrow.

Made it to Japan

2008-12-27T19:50:00.000-08:00

After a flight that halfway through felt endless, but by the end felt as thought it had gone quickly (I know, I don't get it either), I arrived at Narita airport Friday evening

Once I arrived at the airport and made my way through customs, which was fairly quick and easy, I walked out to the arrival area but didn't see any familiar faces. I exchanged my dollars for much fewer yen than I would've liked, walked through the arrival area again to see if I'd missed Yuka and her family, and then found a seat to watch the doors. After nearly two hours of waiting, I spent the $5 it cost to use the airport wi-fi to find my future sister-in-law's phone number, but wasn't able to reach her. I sat a while longer before I finally decided to walk to the other arrival wing of the airport, just in case. Surely enough, at about the same time I had started walking from my wing to the other, Yuka began walking from that wing to the one I was in. We met halfway, and after a warm hello embrace she explained that she'd assumed I was flying American Airlines as that was what we'd both used last time, and what she always uses. She finally called her brother and had him look up my itinerary in her email, which was when she learned that I was on Northwest. She apologized for making me wait, but I told her it was okay, because I had nothing else that I needed to be doing.

I rode with Yuka and her mother and brother back to their house, roughly three hours from the airport. I was warmly received at the house by her father and other brother, and we all joined in preparing some homemade gyoza, which we ate with some very nice *****, followed by a tasty strawberry cake made by Yuka.

The following morning, we headed over to the home of Yuka's Obaa-chan (grandmother), the aged-but-sturdy matriarch of the family farm. We participated in the annual family tradition of mochi-making, which is a tough job but was much easier for me this year. After growing frustrated quickly in my first efforts two years ago, I paid careful attention to my future father- and uncle-in-laws' techniques, which proved to be quite effective when I put them into practice on my second batch during that visit. Like riding a bike, the mochi-skills came right back to me, which proved to be very impressive to Obaa-chan and the great aunts. We ate some of our freshly-made mochi with delicious vegetable soup, and then with sweet red beans, as we sat around talking for a while. I occasionally threw out a relevant statement or phrase in Japanese, further impressing the family. I'm eager for the time when I'll be able to keep up in the whole of conversation, rather than simply catching bits and pieces.

When leaving the farm, we (the whole immediate family less my future sister-in-law) bowled a couple of games there in Utsunomiya, followed by a fantastic dinner at the ramen shop where one of the young cousins who made mochi with us was working the dinner shift. The ramen I ate was simply amazing.

We finished the day by returning home, as the onsen (hot springs) we'd hoped to visit was too busy, and the one closer to home was already closed for the evening. Back in the home, we played some card games until nearly 2 in the morning, with lots of laughing, yelling, and fun. The future sister-in-law, Hiroka, came downstairs at some point obviously annoyed at our noise. She made herself some udon without speaking/responding to anyone, though she did feed one of her thick udon noodles to the little kitty, maybe six months old, who scarfed it down greedily.

Today we're taking it easy. Oto-san, Yuka, and I went to an onsen about 65 kilometers from home for a nice relaxing dip in the hot springs water. As we Oto-san and I got into the hot pool of water, another man asked if I was Yakuza. Oto-san was like, "Nani? Do shite?" (What? Why?") The man pointed at the tattoo on my shoulder. I wish he would've told the man "not anymore", but instead I think he just explained that tattoos are more common in the US. My intact pinkies would've given me away, anyway.

Tomorrow, Yuka and I will go down to Tokyo where she'll have her appointment for renewing her student visa, and then we'll probably shop and perhaps I'll try to catch a meeting.

Japan is simply amazing; I'm having a blast. I'll post more later.

Pan Kun Popcorn

2008-12-24T01:16:00.001-08:00

The Time Is Coming

2008-12-20T15:25:00.000-08:00

In just five short days, I will be getting on a plane and heading to Japan again. Trying to get mentally prepared for this trip keeps bringing me back to two years ago, when I was so new to California and my first "real" job. So much has changed in that time, and yet so many things are very much the same. Trying to finish my year-end letter and get it in the mail before I take off has had me in a reflective sort of mood, bringing up lots of gratitude and sadness. Unfortunately, it leaves me at a sort of loss for words that certainly isn't helpful to my efforts to finish the letter! Oh well. If it happens, it happens.

My real reason for writing right now is to give everyone (all three of my readers) a head's up that I should be blogging during my trip this time, if my phone and the Japanese phone carriers work together well. I can select an option with my cell company (T-Mobile) to be able to send email from my phone internationally, so I should be able to blog from my phone. For practice, I'm typing this post out as an email on my phone right now. So, if you'd like to keep tabs on my trip and see how things are going, just check back here between 25 December and 4 January.

Okay, going back to the year-end letter now. Happy Holidays!

(The picture is of a Christmas gift from Yuka-a replacement watch for the I lost in my motorcycle accident.)

National Priorities Project

2008-12-20T02:42:00.001-08:00

thanks for the tip, E

Real Men of Genius: Mr. Iraqi Journalist Shoe Thrower Guy

2008-12-15T11:12:00.001-08:00

How Tasteful

2008-12-11T14:17:00.001-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving

2008-11-30T12:31:00.000-08:00

This year marked my third Thanksgiving since I moved to California, but the first one that I spent here. It worked out reasonably well, as I was able to drive to Camp Pendleton and pick up my cousin James, who got off work at 7:30 Thursday morning. We managed to get to Tracy by 2:30, just in time to sit down for a meal with my brother Tim and his family. Yasu made a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner: turkey, potatoes, stuffing, veggies, rolls, and a Thanksgiving first for me, tri-tip, a California favorite (before moving out here, I'd never even heard of tri-tip). It was a simply fantastic meal. Too bad for Tim that he had to go work a twelve-hour swing shift after a meal like that. But then, James and I didn't get naps, either. We took the boys down to the park for a while before coming back to watch movies and play games until bedtime. Friday we drove in to San Francisco to visit the zoo, where they had an area set up for ice skating. I took the boys out for their first time on the ice, which they all seemed to enjoy. It did, however, take us a while to finally coax Marco onto the ice. After a short thirty hours in Northern California, James and I hopped in the car so he could be back in time to get a few hours of sleep before going out bright and early Saturday morning to defend freedom. It was a nice holiday. And the year is almost over already. 2009, here we come...

Pan Kun Is My Homeboy

2008-11-18T00:33:00.001-08:00

My Mom Is a Blogger

2008-11-16T11:08:00.000-08:00

Her debut on the Internets.

I have been incredibly busy lately, hence the severe shortage of posts here. I've been going to the gym 3-4 times a week (this week I will shoot for 5 times), still working on my Japanese (nihongo ga sukoshi wakarimasu), finishing school work (I earned an A on my major project for linguistics class, and got a lot of great input from classmates on the second and third chapters of my novel), and plugging away on work projects (after putting together a rough draft of ~10 pages, we decided this week to take a different approach that I think is much more promising). So it may be understandable that, with all of that going on, I haven't been blogging much lately. I won't promise it's going to get much better, either. I'll be driving up to Northern California with my cousin for Thanksgiving, and then flying to Japan on Christmas day to spend a week and a half with my fiancée and the in-laws-to-be. I'm looking forward to it. With that, I'm out for now.

Kung Fu Clowns

2008-11-11T12:22:00.001-08:00

h/t: Colinski

Repo! Genetic Opera

2008-11-07T18:33:00.001-08:00

Now Go Vote for McCain, My Little Pretties...

2008-11-03T09:09:00.001-08:00

Under $3!

2008-10-27T10:23:00.000-07:00

As someone on the radio was saying the other day though: just because the economy is falling apart and driving gas prices down doesn't mean that there's any more oil in the ground than there was last year. This is just a nice little temporary reprieve.

On a side note, I actually bought a tankful of gas on Saturday for $2.77/gal, as it was the special "with car wash" price. I had paid for the car wash with a free coupon I'd received from the car dealership, so it was an all-around good deal for me.

Ronald Reagan Endorses Obama

2008-10-24T12:24:00.001-07:00

h/t: Colinski

Segway Fun with Pan-Kun

2008-10-19T02:25:00.001-07:00

h/t: Japan Probe

More Pics

2008-10-13T15:26:00.000-07:00

Where There's Smoke...

2008-10-13T11:18:00.001-07:00

So apparently there are some fires happening today here in SoCal, not terribly far from work. We're surrounded by enough concrete here that I don't expect we'll have much to worry about aside from the atrocious air quality.

A Myspace Exchange

2008-10-11T12:57:00.000-07:00

I should seriously consider deleting my myspace profile. Too frequently I encounter "bulletin" messages that make me sad for our country. And occasionally I choose to respond, which quickly eats away at my already non-existent free time. But if I'm going to waste time with something like this, at least I can get a blog post out if it ;-)

Here is the text of a recent exchange with someone I knew in grade school, in which I don't even bother discussing the complete unreliability of the Bible:

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: XXXX
Date: Oct 9, 2008 3:24 PM

I was stunned to hear these words from Barack Hussein Obama . . .

"we are no longer a Christian nation; we are now a nation of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, . . ."

As with so many other statements I've heard him (and his wife) make, I never thought I'd see the day that I'd hear something like that from a presidential candidate in this nation. To think our forefathers fought and died for the right for our nation to be a Christian nation--and to have this man say with pride that we are no longer that. How far this nation has come from what our founding fathers intended it to be.

And just to know that so many people are blinded by who he truly is, is completely scary!

I don't believe any Christian could possibly vote for Barack Obama with a clear conscious. He is in favor of abortion, even giving doctors permission to kill living babies that suffer from a botched abortion. And he doesn't believe this a Christian nation anymore.

I just ask everyone to commit to praying about this matter for the next 19 days until the election. Truly commit to praying for God's guidance in the way you vote. And when election time comes, only vote how God leads you.

Love you all!

----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: Chris
Date: Oct 9, 2008 11:20 PM

It makes me sad to see you spouting this ignorance. I will pray that you are able to see past the manipulative lies spread in the name of Christianity today and open your heart to Jesus' real message: universal compassion, which has no room for hate and judgment.

----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: XXXX
Date: Oct 10, 2008 12:53 PM

i don't base my thought on "manipulative lies", i have studied the Bible for myself. you're right, we are not to judge, except for righteous judgement. we are to stand for what Jesus would stand for. and gas prices and the economy are definately not something He really cares about. one day when we stand at the judgement, He won't ask if we our economy was good. He'll wonder why we let our country kill babies that He created.

----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: Chris
Date: Oct 11, 2008 12:30 PM

In an effort to keep this focused on the original topic I had responded to, I must simply point out that the men who founded this nation recognized the supreme importance of freedom of religion. After all, the very reason for so many European immigrants at the time was that they had not been free to practice their religion of choice. So it is disturbing that an American would say that "the scariest thing Obama has said" is that non-Christians are just as welcome here as Christians.

When I referred to manipulative lies, I was referring to the many ways in which corrupt politicians and rich religious leaders work together to sway the votes of well-meaning Christians by distracting them with hot-button issues such as abortion. The simple truth of the matter, and something that most evangelical church leaders will not break ranks to admit, is that the outcome of this election will have very little, if any, impact on abortion laws. So regardless of whether or not you're willing to recognize the fact that our stone-age, religious-right inspired "abstinence only" sex education is a major factor in the reason for a vast number of unwanted pregnancies that end in abortion (most of which would happen regardless of whether or not abortion was outlawed), abortion is being brought up only to change the votes of those who are concerned about doing the right thing but don't realize that they're being manipulated.

If Jesus were really to see the state of our nation today, he would be much more appalled at how we treat our poor. Rather than loving our neighbor, we live in a nation that caters to the greed and decadence of the rich. Our government has for a long time been in the hands of the super-wealthy, who can afford to manipulate the politicians and church leaders, so that no good can be accomplished without capitulating to some extent to the wishes of our corporate overlords. As a result, we turn a blind eye to much of the suffering in our country and around the world, and instead of investing in the health and well-being of everyone, the majority of our population toils away to generate outrageous profits for the wealthy few.

Topics like abortion and homosexuality are brought up as red herrings to convince otherwise good people to vote for those who will ensure that the exploitation continues. It is not very expensive to stir up unfounded fears among Christians that their faith is under attack in order to sway the vote. It worked in 2000 and 2004, and the unbridled greed was permitted to continue while we continued to neglect the well-being of the general public.

If we put the same money into educating our public and providing proper healthcare to those who are sick that we put into deposing a leader who was not in any way connected to the atrocious attacks we suffered in 2001, our nation would be strong, and vibrant, and capable of being the beacon of hope to the rest of the world that we once were.

It's not about gas prices and the economy. It's about whether or not our nation is working to love our neighbors, in and out of our own borders. The driving force of conservative politics is the protection of those who refuse to do so. When it is convenient, they call upon Christians to help them stay in power, appealing to them with empty promises that are tossed aside once the ballots are cast.

Maybe Ohio...

2008-10-04T14:15:00.001-07:00

Show Me the Money

2008-09-29T00:57:00.001-07:00

source: http://blogs.venturacountystar.com/greenberg/archives/2008/08/

source: http://chartjunk.karmanaut.com/taxplans/

Caution

2008-09-28T12:44:00.000-07:00

Baton Relay in Progress

Who's Really in Charge of the Economy?

2008-09-26T10:37:00.001-07:00

Fall

2008-09-24T21:59:00.000-07:00

From Chatsworth Train Crash 09-12-2008

So I am getting into this whole Fall semester thing. Between all of the classwork and the job, I'm staying pretty busy. Not too busy to post a blog entry every once in a while, of course.

The picture above is from the day almost two weeks ago when a train crashed a mile and a half from my house. I verified to myself that I am not a journalist by not wanting to get close enough to the accident to get any good pictures. I just kept thinking that I would've felt incredibly weird standing around taking pictures in the midst of a tragedy like that. So instead, I stood around a mile and a half away taking pictures, mostly of police cars and helicopters.

Just last week, I had the pleasure of coming home to find some folks in the park across the street shooting footage for a porn, though not for the x-rated scenes. Just one of the pleasures of living in Chatsworth.

My sister bought a $500 Amtrak ticket that is apparently good for as much travel as she wants to do within a certain time frame, so this weekend she was in Northern California visiting our brother and his family. I drove up late Friday night/early Saturday morning to pick her up from the train station and spend the weekend with the lot of them. I had a nice time, but didn't get around to taking any pictures. Maybe next time. I think I was a little preoccupied thinking about the homework that I should've been back in LA working on.

As if I wasn't busy enough with school and work, Heroes and the Office are back now to eat up more of my time. If it weren't for series television, I think I would probably be a much more prolific blogger. And maybe if it wasn't for the Internet, I would be a much more prolific writer. Sigh.

Last night I went to a blogger meetup in downtown LA and met some local bloggers. It was a nice time, but definitely helped me feel more like a negligent blogger. Oh well.

Anyway, I'm just counting down the days 'til my next trip to Japan. 92 days. Actually, more like 91 days, 12 hours...to departure, that is. I've been keeping up with my Pimsleur audio Japanese lessons. Ima, nihongo-ga skoshi wakarimasu. Ja, mata.

Ninja Cat

2008-09-15T22:21:00.001-07:00