Finally Keikyu, Boy meets goat, and Bear gets political

(Original post and comments here.)

I just love good news! But what do you get for this couple?

It's good to finally have the Fuji story out of the way. I really wanted it posted but had a hard time finding the time to do it - twice. In any case, it's done and now I can go back to posting trivial crap. Isn't that nice? I've got tons more photos and stuff on the way, including the magnificent keikyu poster.

I'll get back on here hopefully this afternoon to throw on a few more photos and maybe start a caption contest. I gotta get some hustle on at the moment.

<play yourself some elevator music for a few minutes>

Ok, I'm back. I realize it's a couple of years old, but I thought this was a good cautionary tale. Trust our friends in Nature, stay away from Bush.

But on to the main event. Here's some more wacky Japanalicious English and assorted unsanity.

Fashion critic in Nagoya Apparently if you're not careful about how you dress, the sun will send his fists of fury after you. It goes without saying that gramps' glasses are a no-no, but even little old ladies aren't safe from that vicious south-southeast jab. And I can tell you now, the sun being the massive ancient nuclear reactor that it is, if it's getting impatient about a little thing like some of us not being able to coordinate an outfit, we might be in trouble. I think maybe sunny-bunny needs a nappy-wappy, huh?


British Style, huh? About the meal. Cornflakes is eaten in the morning and daytime eats sandwiches and potato chips... Fish is what fried the white fish... British people attach vinegar, when eating Fish & Chips... grayvy sauce is attached and eaten to it... Garnishes are... A carrot, a cabbage, a pea, etc.
Yes, yes, of course we knew all that, except the bit about milk chocolate containing very much milk. Dammit man, you've been questioning him for 92 hours straight and this is all you've got? Where is the Amulet? Who is this "grayvy" and how does he know about Vegetarian? Speak!

Now we're getting somewhere It also runs today...
Well done, Stevens! I say, chaps, we should have the Amulet within which can see from the only Britain owns the red. Great Scott! what am I Saying? He must have brought some virus in here and more more more! Where is the place to want to go? Let's go out with me!

Drunkomo, the new Docomo mascot, had a few too many before showing up for work this morning.




And finally, the tremendously popular gay Swedish wrestling marionette duo "Slammerungdasheize" are here to tell us about Keikyu's caption contest!
"At this time, we invite all of you to encaptionate this photo. Please tell us of your desire for to see its underwords with use of comment feature. Winner will appear when selectioned. Thank you! We are on fire!"

Fuji-san

(Original post and comments here.)

This is the long-awaited blog exclusive abridged edition; you can find my absurdly detailed version at my otherwise useless geocities page.
And of course there's also Morgan and Maya's version. Don't ask which of them is the Fat Buddha, though; it might be a touchy subject.
PS - sorry about posting this half a dozen times, the formatting around the photos refuses to behave

So a while back I heard about a few of my coworkers planning to scale the Monster (aka the Fooj, aka Mt. Fuji) to watch the sunrise, so I decided to grab me a piece of that action, having missed out the first time around Nippon. The climb is not an uncommon feat, so I wasn't overly worried as I packed my junk and slapped on a pair of sneakers.

Morgan and Maya were going along too, and Morgan figured out that our itinerary made it pretty much impossible to make it to the top by the 5:03 sunrise... which would be a bit of a downer after climbing a mountain to watch the sunrise. So we (meaning he) did some legwork and found an alternate route that would allow us to complete the mission. It was a few hours longer commute and required trainhopping that made us feel like Frogger, but you only do this once, so you do it right, right? Right. ... Where was I?

Oh yeah. The Fuji Express, a beautifully painted train with legroom for 12 at every seat. This little gem afforded us some great views of Fuji while we bobbed and weaved through the little mountains approaching the one that gets almost as much action as Ms. Hilton. It's honestly pretty impressive as you approach, and I almost think even the Japanese engineers gave some consideration to the aesthetics when they designed the route. Unlikely I know, but it's just possible. Or it might be that a few peeks at the peak were unavoidable. It is pretty big. Considering that we were going during Obon, it was also nice to see that the train wasn't full of climbers. All the guidebooks warn that Obon is a bad time, what with every Japanese person taking advantage of the one holiday they more or less all get during climbing season, plus a flood of tourists and gaijin desperate to get the same pictures and postcards as all of their friends.

While waiting for our bus to depart from Kawaguchiko we picked up walking sticks, replenished our water reserves, and sat around on our thumbs. A good time was had by all, except maybe the anonymous lady blowing chunks in the powder room. The bus trip was a bit frightening, but by this point we all dozed, waiting for our 2nd wind to arrive. Ok, be honest, maybe 22nd (there were a lot of nuts in the trail mix).

We hang out at Gogome, the 5th station, for about an hour, psyching up, pigging out, zoning in, and so forth. What I find really great about the throng of climbers that rode up with us was that while some do their stretches and/or comment about the air being noticeably thinner, some are also having a quick smoke to prepare their lungs for the beating they're about to take. Virtually everyone who arrived at the same time as us also leaves within 15 minutes.

As I said, this is Station 5 (elevation 2,305m) of the actual climb. So when I say we climbed Fuji, I only mean we got to the top (3,776m) without a giant slingshot. We took a bus this far because the slope and the time involved to this point are just not worth it. By all accounts I've heard it's just a really loooong hike up to that point, and where's the drama in that? Where ya gonna get your "Save yourself!" and "Give me the ring!" moments on a long hike, huh? You won't, that's where. So we fast-forwarded to the good parts.

For the first couple of minutes after departing Station 5 (at 21:35) we think we've fast-forwarded way too far...we're heading downhill, and as omens go, we don't exactly need tea-leaves to know that's a bad thing. Fortunately, the trail gets its act together and we're soon going up. At the 6th Station (2,390m, 22:10ish) we're a bit ahead of schedule and feeling good about the climb, so after a short break we play a couple of sets of tennis and take a cooking class press on.

Pretty much the whole climb after that is a blur of darkness, trail mix, branding our walking sticks, and replacing flashlight batteries since I didn't think ahead like M&M did to get one of those stylish and adorable headlamps. I'm surprised how much of the climb has reinforced concrete shoring up the sides of the walking trails, or chicken wire forming the loose volcanic rock into steps, but to keep it "rugged and natural" (Japanese style) the trail itself is rarely paved. They don't go quite that far.

Probably the most memorable moment comes when Morgan figures out his wallet is missing, most likely dropped on the bus. Denial, anger, bargaining, etc; 2700+ metres up we have it all, but there's nothing to be done about the wallet till we get back down in any case, and dawn at the summit is coming with or without us, so on we go through the traffic jams and lineups, guided by other people's flashlights so much that I turn off my own for long segments of the climb. My feet are getting blisters, and long periods of mostly standing in line on the narrow trails is not helping me forget about them. It's actually a relief when the trail gets steeper and rockier because people are forced to spread out a bit more and I can concentrate on something more interesting than my aching legs and the faces and voices of the people we keep leapfrogging because they rest anywhere they want while we take our breathers at the stations. You know, the way civilized folk do.

One other thing that sticks out is hearing one of the other gaijin near me get late-night cranky to his friends about the Japanese people behind us. They keep saying, "Sugoi" (in this case, roughly meaning 'wow') about every 5 seconds. Once you live here for a while, that word basically fades into the background noise because it's so versatile and overused. After Jo Schmo points it out, though, it comes back to the surface and I start noticing it every time. Plus I have lots of time to think back over the last segment or so of the climb and my mental replay is peppered with 'sugoi' too. So now I'm hearing it double and getting late-night cranky about it myself. Perfect. When Morgan leads a surge forward to get away from that cluster I'm only too happy to follow.

As we ascend, the traffic gets more and more backed up and I can't help but note how Japanese this whole little pilgrimage is turning out. You just don't get this kind of problem on the other famous mountains of the world, I should think. There were literally thousands of people all told. From maybe 15 or so to around 60, everybody was getting a little Fuji action. On the way down we even saw a guy carrying a small spaniel and leading his young daughter. Has anyone seen this kind of thing on Kilimanjaro?

		Finally, after a long period of concern about the lightening eastern sky and whether we'd make it in time, at 04:45 we reach the top, pass through the symbolic gate, find a slightly less crowded spot, and stop dead in our tracks. tadaaaaaaaaaa....! We're not about to move anytime soon and we start frantically snapping photos of where the sun will be when it gets its lazy butt outta bed, still 15 minutes off. To be fair, the cloudscape is pretty spectacular and along with everyone else there except possibly the tour guides and shop staff, we already know we'll never see this in person again. When the sun finally pokes out from behind the cloud horizon, there is bountiful if tired cheering, a bit of singing, and a deafening sustained chorus of shutter clicks. Eventually, though, we've stared at and posed in front of and clicked on everything in sight, and we proceed up the last few steps to where the crowd has more or less gotten stuck: the mall. There's no Walmart there yet, but on top of Fuji there is a string of shops for souvenirs, soup (re: everything else: "No, we've run out of that"), engravings, omemori, etc. Even the bathroom is a business, and at 200 yen a visit I think they're doing alright. There are 10 toilets and 5 urinals, and I still wait in line for at least half an hour.
Click for larger versions

There's also the crater, conveniently located between us and the weather station on the far side, at the actual highest point. It's about a half hour walk there, which means a half hour walk back, which means we take the obligatory snaps and fuggedaboudit. We're going home. But that becomes an ordeal in itself.

Bated Breath

(Original post and comments here.)

Click the title for an article in the NY times. I'm just fascinated wondering how Bush will sneak out of his main objection. Should be a classic bit of backpedaling.

In other news, the fuji story is finally up on my webpage and monstrously huge, still working on trimming it down so's it wont be an obscenely long blog entry, but it's taken way too long to get this far, so I'll put it up on my site for now. Here's one other linkto tide you over.

That's My Soul up There

(Original post and comments here.)

Feed me, Seymour!

Biking along the highway the other day, I saw this section of tree that got left behind because it had been a little too accommodating about the fence it was growing beside; the links literally go through the trunk in about half a dozen places. The tree just grew around the fence and then absorbed it. Brilliant.

Coming soon... The Fuji saga is still in the works. There's drama, there's suspense, there's passion and betrayal! Even - yes, why not? - MURDER most foul! And all that's just in the hype! Watch this space for it.

UPDATE (Aug 21st): In the meantime and in-between time, here's my climbing companions' account of the fiascapade.

One Last One

(Original post and comments here.)

I have to do one more about silly photos, then I promise I'll post real stuff for a while. Yes, I survived Fuji, that saga is in the works, but for now you'll have to make do with this.

I hope that clears it up for you. This is at a hair salon outside a friend's old apartment. I really like that you can basically tell what they were getting at, but the whole thing drank a good dose of Dr. Jekyll's formula when noone was looking. In case it's hard to read, it says, "This hair style is symbol of womanlike./ Is your hair style nice and beauty now ?/ If you lose your control making your hair style./ Please remember back about us." We're the ones who get it right when it matters.

You uhh, you gonna buy that? What a lovely afternoon! Aren't we comfortable here together? I hope you're enjoying your time in this store, fellow shopper! Aren't these products nice? You have certainly taken your time - 23 seconds, in fact - to look at the 3rd red sweater from the top on table 7, followed by a detailed examination of two of the mannequins in section J-4. Let's chat again sometime!

In a modern living space it's important to reach a good ratio of trapeze equipment to drugged wildlife... Mind you, I'm really not sure if I like having so many spare batteries east of the hot wax vats, what do the principles of Feng Shui have to say about it?

Just what are they up to?

(Original post and comments here.)

I saw this old weathered sign at a recycling station near my house a while ago and forgot about it until I biked by it yesterday morning. It advertises some kind of book of weight loss tips and the bit at the top says you can lose 5 kilos in 10 days.

First, if the difference between the before and after images is 5 kilos, I'm a furry yellow elephant.

Second, notice how the transition arrow points both ways. Not sure what they're implying there, or how it's supposed to promote sales of this book.

Third, why on earth should the grossly obese woman want to change at all? Can you imagine the state of our Horrible Warning System if everyone whose life expectancy was measured in hours started to get in shape? Scientists are still debating whether it would cause a new Skinny Age or Global Eating, but as I understand it, this is a summary of how they play out:

1) All the SHBC (Single Hovering Brain Cell, for those of you with less medical expertise) people who mistake a cracker for a meal would start running out of people to feel superior to and would eat less and less to keep ahead of the descending average weight. At the point that they become transparent, fashion magazines would go wild trying to take credit for the trend and begin a fresh assault on the self-confidence of the now hopelessly behind the times and stigmatized "Opaque." They would begin an even more dramatic weight purge to get in line with fashion demands, and this would be the first stage where the trend would spread widely to the male population due to the undesirability of dating Opaque men. Until this point only Gap employees and hairdressers were affected among the male population. Blown around by errant breezes and lacking the energy to save themselves, most of the anemic population would drown in large puddles or starve to death in treetops.

Pretty grim, I know. But the Global Eating scenario is no better:

2) Noting declining sales in western countries, corporations begin a desperate campaign to bring food (and the concurrent electrical supply necessary for refrigeration) to untapped markets at reasonable prices. Television follows as a marketing tool. Initially Ethiopians and rural Chinese farmers are often heard wondering what to do with Feta Cheese in a Can and Dubble-Krispy Bubble-gum-flavored Pork Rinds, among others, although the decision never takes long. Finally not having to watch loved ones starve to death, and able to watch endless reruns of Friends(brought to you by...), people lose interest in blowing each other up. As recruitment becomes more and more difficult, frenzied suicide bombers steal a nuclear warhead and detonate it at the center of the earth, destroying the ENTIRE PLANET.

Think before you diet.

Can you say 'Bandwagon'?

(Original post and comments here.)

Have you seen this crap?

http://www.davincimethod.com/indigo.html

"I always thought my kid was more of a fuschia. Got anything for him?"

But ultimately that's not why I'm here. You guessed it, I have more goofy photos to share with you, because I'm a sharer. A giver. A bestower of substances. From flatulence to photos, you can count on me to share it if I got it. If you need some eggplant or a spare sacroiliac, you're on your own. Speaking of eggplant, I was checking out a little supermarket I biked by this morning and the lady putting produce on the tables had, I swear to (insert local deity), an eggplant that came out of the box shaped like a penguin. I wish I had that photo, I would share it with you too, but custody was awarded to the classification "Eggplant" and so I cannot. Penguins and photos all over the neighborhood are planning to appeal this latest decision.

...unless you want to The wonders of the 100 yen shop are not to be believed. I wanted to get one just to confuse smokers, but wiser heads prevailed. Oh, how I was looking forward to watching the twitching worsen when they tried to process this, maybe if I got lucky I could watch someone's head explode... Too bad they're persecuted so much already, as it is most smokers I know would probably just glance at this and then ash in my hair.

Home Pie and Creamy Powder I put these together to save YOU time. Damn I'm too nice.
Home Pie: On a bed of the finest Norwegian driveway and garnished with ground windowpanes.
Creamy Powder: Every time I think they've finally made the dehydrated mayonnaise I've dreamed of for so long, it's just coffee whitener. Or creamer. (Is that a dirty word?) Whatever. If it has to do with coffee, I can't be bothered.

Bite Size Beer My ex's mother used to drink one of these a day because she couldn't handle a normal-sized beer but she liked the taste and heard it was good for your health. I've heard they're actually intended to be left on tombstones as offerings to the departed(more likely the caretakers). That kind of cool take on spirituality is what redeems the culture here; when you die, sure you get flowers and whatnot, but how about something you enjoyed in life to take with you? Remember, a spirit only weighs 21 ounces, so at afterlife parties this is at least the equivalent of a keg.

Pet Sugar Can't keep up with the hectic demands a goldfish places on your life? Japan has the answer for you.

Used Hard But I didn't hear any complaints.



Okay, I still have a backlog of several years worth of stuff like this and I find more all the time, but that's all for today. Wait'll I get around to putting the Keikyu poster on. Mwahahaha.

See you next time! In case you're wondering, comments can be left by clicking the word 'comments' below...

(Update Sep 06/06: the Keikyu poster is finally here!)

To see what I can see...

(Original post and comments here.)

Apologies for the first two incomplete incarnations of this post, especially to any of you who have (thank you!) subscribed to hear about updates. I very nearly promise not to make any more superficial nitpicking changes to this post.

Here's a fun one from Nara I took in late 2004. It was a small poster for the spherical rice cake things in bags at the bottom of the photo that you could probably kill a small elephant with if you got one right between the eyes. We tried nibbling on one, but imagine trying to get a start on a rock-hard sphere the size of both your fists placed side by side. Well, actually, my fists, which are sort of medium to large, just so we're all on the same page. Since we were in Nara anyway, we tried giving it to the deer, a few of whom tried gamely at it before moving on to easier fare. I should mention that I don't advocate feeding wildlife, but 'wild' no more applies to the deer in Nara than 'actor' does to Ahnuld. Those things are so tourist friendly they'll friendly your hand right off if you don't let go of their crackers quick enough.

In any case the nose-picking is a reference to one of the famous Buddha statues in town. The statue is huge, and in the temple there is a massive wooden pillar beside it with a hole cut out that's the same size as his nostril. If you can get through it's said to give you long life, or good health, or intimate knowledge of the Dewey Decimal System, or some such crap. Anyway, I made it through, but the only photo I have is really really blurry. Blew the minds of all the school children waiting in line to try it when this huge gaijin got in line with them, and I don't think they thought I could understand Japanese because they were all going on about how there's no way on earth I'd make it through. Suckers! I'm tall by local standards, but built like a pen. Goes to show you how acute their spatial reasoning was. Man, 8-year-olds can be so dumb sometimes. I should have started taking bets. "Pay up, kid, or your goofy yellow ball cap might have an accident."

Okay folks, enough of that tangent, who got me started on that anyway? For my next trick I'm going to climb Mount Fuji - next week! Not the next week of procrastination fame, but August 14th (15th if the weather forgets to cooperate). Only 38 billion people a year do it, so I gotta start shaping up. No more donut and beer breakfasts for this little fitness buff, for the next week I'm a lean, mean, climbing machine.

Of course once I've had that awesome high of seeing the sunrise from "so much closer" and pushing my body to its limits and what have you, I'll be right back down in the comfortable lows again. Hey, if they're all highs you forget how good you've got it, right? Gotta keep the average low so that the highs are more spectacular, that's what I always say...but in most contexts it makes no sense. hyuk hyuk.

Also, the 43rd annual Kiryu Yagibushi Festival was this past weekend, pictures of me doing an awful butchery of the traditional dance alongside 500 other people will fit right here shortly, but until I get them from Jon or whoever was taking the pictures while I decided to make an ass of myself, here's one I took of some of my coworkers having a shot at it - er, not making an ass of me, just, oh nevermind. Interestingly enough, not all of the Japanese people knew it, and I think maybe our presence there shamed them into giving it a shot. Whatever the reason, once we had a decent grasp of how it went, each of us at various points had to teach a newcomer or two.

Oh, and I have to put a link to this joke on here. Have a look at the rest of the Jumbo Joke site as well, it's damn funny and well-laid out. Start with the Quick Sanity Test.

Amazing Reproductive Quality

(Original post and comments here.)

A few weeks ago I had to cover for a coworker at one of her classrooms for a day. Next door was this little gem:

I know, so what, right? Nothing special about that. But look what H.C.C. stands for:


Pretty awesome what photocopiers can do these days.

I can ablate pogrom bobolink johnson on MY budget?!?!?!

(Original post and comments here.)

In other news, every once in a while, my crappy Yahoo junkmail filters let a really obvious one make it all the way to my inbox. Here's one that forced my brain to switch to emergency power after shorting out. I thought the text just sounded so convincingly Native English speaker-like, this must have been written by an American:

______________________________________________________

Subject: Hello blutwurst herpes!

Heads up compatriot Ammericaan Home0wners.


I am Frank Spears. In respect to the USA residential moortgage current forecast, our lending specialists want to inform you how upcoming home-loan rates will raise drastically.

Since you received this message, hence you can benefit for amazing refinancing rate.

Today's best: 4,7%

(I snipped the url - mike)

Start saving the real dollars!


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______________________________________________________

It was a masterpiece, I could tell right off the bat. With a subject line like that, how can you miss? And what timing too, I was just thinking I should get a nice new (Dutch?) moortgage, even though in Japan it's practically illegal for me to use the air, let alone own a house. Us wacky Ammericaans.

When my $32,000,000 gets back from Nigeria I'm SO buying a fleet of penis enlargers and signing up on all the big beautiful singles with pics websites 'cause Amber, Tiffany, and Britney all want to hook up tonight after I take care of my mortgage woes. I know, you're pretty jealous, huh?