6 Minutes of Awesome

(Original post and comments here.)

Click the title, take 6 minutes out of your day, and enjoy. This should be the most linked to video on the net for the next few days. Absolutely brilliant. I just hope a few americans see it before they head to the polls.

Holy Brastrap Batman!

(Original post and comments here.)

I'm stunned. Flabbergasted has been redefined. I'm blown away, and can't decide whether I'm upset or not about there not being any photos to go along with this post. I want proof. I've just seen the most unbelievable thing yet on Japanese television, and I cannot conceive of what will take its place. When I've talked to people about what they know about Japanese tv invariably it's something about Iron Chef or maybe Takeshi's Castle, but this is something that I think the west is unlikely to ever syndicate. Keep in mind that it was only around 9:30, maybe 10.

The only thing I can do is describe the show. Please bear with me, this is my best approximation of how I experienced this and, with my limited Japanese, pieced together the details of what the hell was going on.

When I flip to the channel, there are 6 girls and 1 guy on stage. The girls all look around 13-15 so they're probably 18-19 (you get used to the age-guessing arithmetic here after a while), all wearing uniform pink shirts with a slogan and something to do with a mermaid but the resolution and focus are inadequate to know more. The guy (perhaps 20) is rarely seen, and it doesn't take long to deduce that he's not the feature here, just the emcee. One of the girls has pulled the side of her skirt down enough that she can lift the waistband of her underwear to show to the camera, which obligingly zooms in for a closeup, then two of them hold up their skirts for the cameras to pan slowly across their undies for a few seconds. The camera zooms back out to a shot of the two girls obviously being featured (the other four hover in the background and don't warrant a microphone), and suddenly a family name comes up on screen below them (Kobayashi in Osaka or something like that). The two girls are given a magic marker, with which they write/draw on the shirts they're wearing for a few moments.

There is much applause for Kobayashi-san as two of the girls in the background step forward to accept large ziploc bags and hold them out for the featured girls. They, in turn, proceed to strip off their shirts and reach under their skirts to take off their underwear, which are all destined for the ziplocs. Someone in the studio takes a photo of them standing there topless, there is much applause, and they depart.

By this time I have pieced together a few more things from the intermittent glimpses of the t-shirts and banner:

• The shirts say "Stop!AIDS" [sic] - sounds more like a warning sign, doesn't it?


• The woman on the t-shirts I thought might be a mermaid is just standing in a giant condom


• This is the 2006 24-hour fundraiser - presumably for AIDS-related causes x, y and z

Two new girls come on, very briefly introduce themselves, give a hint of what they're wearing, and a CG banner slides onscreen. They say "Start!" (well, ok, "Staato") and a white-board is greenscreened into the bottom left corner of the screen with "24 yen" written on it (that's basically 24 cents, give or take a pittance). The last piece clicks into place: people are phoning in bids to get these girls' underwear! I didn't want to believe it when it first occurred to me, but this put the nails in the coffin, even though 24 yen has to be a joke. The girls continue to show their frilly bras and demonstrate that the panties you can buy are going to come straight off their bodies. All this while the bids keep coming in, and top out at 35,000 yen($350) when, for whatever reason, the bidding ends, which the generous So-and-so-san in Wherever won. There is much applause, and the Ziploc Strip begins again.

Some kind philanthropist shells out 50,000 yen for the next two girls' dainties, perhaps because one of them was too modest to show her panties to the camera while she was wearing them and would only show them to the emcee. Someone obligingly held a thin strip of paper in front of the camera when she had to lift her skirt a bit to take them off. (NB - they obviously weren't prepared for this possibility.)

I flipped back across this channel about half an hour later and the parade was still going.

Now I realize that it's largely my North American upbringing that makes my first instinct tell me there's something weird about topless young girls on early evening TV, and I try to look past that. They're adults and don't seem to be prostitutes or anything, just normal girls trying to raise some money for a good cause. What was really tough to wrap my head around was that the society here is so used to the idea of buying girls' freshly worn underwear that this probably didn't raise an eyebrow. It reminded me of the time a Japanese friend told me to call her "Yellow Monkey", and another responded to my astonishment with, "It's OK, we're all Japs here. And you guys are Limeys, and Yanks, and ...what do you say for Canadians, anyway?"(Good question. Canucks? Doesn't really have the same connotations.) Don't get me wrong, not having to tiptoe around the PC monster 24/7 is great, but I should think there is a line somewhere between calling consenting friends Japs and Yellow Monkeys and leering old men drooling with anticipation of the first whiff when they open their Ziploc bag full of hot-off-the-press underwear.

Am I just a prude?

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.