I'm back in the US. It's been pretty good so far: lots of great food, being able to go places without having to rely on trains, stuff costing closer to what it should, etc. I'm definitely leaning towards moving back here sometime in the next year or so, whether to St. Louis or somewhere else.
Oh yeah, so I complain a lot of times about how bad Japanese TV is, especially since 90% of programming in Japan consists of the same stable of untalented "talents" overreacting to food porn. But I was sitting here working on Monday afternoon with the TV left tuned to MTV and my god, I think the shows on there (of course they don't play music videos) have gotten even worse than before, and even beyond bad Japanese shows. I watched about 10 minutes of this show called "Parental Control" and it was just so bad in so many ways I couldn't turn it off. I'm hoping that none of you are familiar with this show so here's what I can gather about it: it's a dating/reality type show where a guy's parents aren't happy with their son's girlfriend. Each of the parents set up the son on a blind date, and the parents and current girlfriend monitor the date from the living room with a TV monitor. At the end of the episode, the guy decides to stay with his girlfriend, or he can choose one of the other 2 girls.
First off this show had the same style, music, and feel that all MTV shows have had for the past 10-15 years. It was just sad how the shows on that station haven't changed at all in so long, yet I'm sure they still have a steady audience of pre-teens who don't know any better. Next, contestants on MTV shows are always the same type of people: obnoxious, stupid loud, rude, and suggestive. On this show the parents were also like this, which made it super creepy, especially when the dad brought his girl out for his son to date, and wouldn't shut up about "how hot she is." Where does a married guy in his late 40's or so find a 20-something girl who wants to be on a TV dating show??
The answer, of course, is that he didn't, and she was provided by MTV, but it was still super creepy.
And almost like clockwork, when things starting "heating up" during the date, the current girlfriend started getting all uppity and then was arguing with the parents, expletives flying and the censor beep being used just a little too much. The show was just obnoxious and repetitive, although I did laugh a few times. These times were when the son was on camera (a lot) since he was probably in his early 20's, seemed to have an IQ equal to his age, and was going super bald but still insisted on spiking his hair up a lot. Har har.
Quote so bad I had to make a note of it #1: "Since we went rock climbing, I brought you some rock candy!"
Quote #2, by a girl who got rejected because she was mega butch: "You know what, I am manly, and if I ever see you on the street I'm going to kick your ass!"
Ugh. I hate you MTV.
Also I'm tired of seeing "professional" poker on ESPN. Mainly just the guys with sunglasses, because that's obnoxious.
Seriously, I'm having a great time in the US, but a lot of TV here is just amusingly bad.
I'll be heading back to St. Louis this summer from June 26 to July 17, and after that I'll be in LA until the afternoon of the 20th. Will be back in Japan on the 21st.
Airfare was really cheap so I'm taking advantage of my flexible schedule and coming back to get some real pizza and Mexican food. If you're going to be around, let me know and we can meet up. There's also the possibility of a drive out to Indiana if there's enough demand.
I remember once upon a time I wrote things occasionally on this blog that were funny or interesting, but recently I feel like I haven't been posting anything but boring LiveJournal-esque stories about what I ate for lunch or what color socks I'm wearing*. I should try to change that, but I think a big part of the problem is that my life has been so mundane lately there isn't much else to write about. I don't even have as many complaints about Japanese culture or society because with the whole working at home/flexitime thing these days I'm not getting exposed to the public as much as before. That is not necessarily bad.
I'll try and come up with better material one day, but don't hold your breath. This blog has still and always will be for myself and my own amusement, slightly adjusted for friends to read and perhaps waste a few minutes of otherwise productive time wasted browsing the interwebs.
Quick story: This is about one of the hobos here in my city, who I guess I've started calling No-Nose Joe on account of a bandage or duct tape always covering his likely frostbitten/missing nasal organ. This guy has a very impressive collection of hobo junk, usual stacked on his tiny (child's?) bicycle, which he is usually seen creeping along on near Chiba station or Yodobashi Camera. I say creeping because I've seen earthworms move faster than this man. I was pretty surprised a few weeks ago when I saw ol' No-Nose Joe in the supermarket near my house, where he was creepin' along with a shopping cart rather than the usual bike chariot. He was, of course, in the liquor aisle, mentally debating which carton of cheap booze to buy for the night while at the same time doing a great job of repelling other customers from the aisle because, let's be honest, hobos don't smell great**. I too was trying to avoid him, but after making my rounds in the store and completing all my other shopping, I still needed a loaf of bread and Joe was still blocking the bread shelf, which is in the same aisle as alcohol. I took a deep breath, gripped my basket, and headed into the aisle. . .
I don't know what I did to this man, in this life or a former one, but somehow he is deathly afraid of me. As soon as he spots me entering the aisle, his eyes open wide like a deer in headlights and he goes off in the opposite direction. I don't mean he creeped away at his usual 1mph - he RAN away from me as if I were charging at him with a bloody machete. I was of course startled but more surprised at the fact that this normal slow-moving homeless man had apparently channeled into Usain Bolt. End.
So yeah, other boring stuff.
It's been just over 4 months since I left my last job at a Japanese company and started working for this American start-up doing business development and stuff. The job is great: I have a lot of freedom, work at home, and even get to travel sometimes. I have control and responsibilities that I never even got close to having at my last job. The problem (well, not really that bad) lately is that I've been given so much freedom and open-ended goals that it's difficult to get myself focused. Of course I like having freedom, but sometimes I do slightly miss more concrete direction and specific assignments. It's a lot like running my own business, so I guess I just need to get more used to working like this.
It's been almost three years since I graduated from IU and headed out to Japan to work. I've changed jobs a few times, done a lot of fun stuff, met a lot of good people, but I'm finally starting to see that it might be time to leave Japan. It's not that things are bad here at all, but I feel like it's time to move on. It would be more beneficial for my work for me to be in St. Louis as well, and I'm definitely looking forward to having an apartment again that has space for furniture and a giant computer station like I used to have. Japan is great but if there's no specific reason for me to be here, I don't think I should stay. One reason I didn't leave immediately after starting this new job was the chance that I'd be starting up business here in Japan, over in China, and other places in Asia that would make it advantageous to have someone already in the region. That possibility's not gone at all, but I personally haven't been focusing on it much yet, which means that the company's not either. I'm thinking that if I get some solid reasons to stay in Japan, like with work, then I could definitely stick around for a bit longer. But on the other hand, if I don't end up doing that, then it's probably time to head back to the "real world." I'm thinking I'll give myself until next spring.
*white, if you really want to know
**of course, if you don't have a nose, you probably don't care what you smell like. NNJ ftw.
The MicroSD card that I'd been using in my R4 died somehow a few nights ago. I was using it just fine one night, and the next day it wouldn't work. I tried it in both the DS and on my computer several times using different readers, but no luck. The card was corrupted or something. Thus, my Chrono Trigger save file was gone Ugh. I was playing that game for quite a while and had just gotten the Doppel Doll, ready to go get Crono back.
I thought I'd have a chance at recovering the files - I used a bunch of different file recovery programs and finally had some luck with one called Recuva. It was able to scan the SD card following a quick format to make the card accessible, and was seemingly able to recover most of the files. Unfortunately when I actually tried using those files they wouldn't work. I tried looking for a solution to unscramble those files or something, but didn't have any luck. I think I might just be totally boned on getting that save file back.
I'm pretty sure the card crapped out on my just because it was a horribly cheap, generic Chinese SD card that I got with the R4 last summer in Beijing. It was a no-namer that I'd been using fairly frequently for almost a year, so I guess it's not that surprising. Went and bought a SanDisk 2GB card at Yodobashi yesterday for like 1700 yen. (Storage is so dirt cheap these days - I'm always surprised at that.)
So in short, back up your files. Especially if you're playing on an R4 and have like 30 or 40 hours logged on a sweet RPG.
Almost forgot about this. This was the best customs poster I saw during my last trip. No, probably ever. It's from the Hong Kong Food and Environmental Hygiene Department warning about fines for smuggling raw meat and vegetables across the border. Or something like that (I can't read Chinese).
I don't know what's better, the fact that the old woman has a giant flannel bag full of raw chickens, or her bright velvet Rick James pants.
It seems like ever since I got back from my trip I've been pretty busy. My first day back in Japan I think I slept over 12 hours, probably recovering from the lack of sleep and ton of walking I did over in China. Friday night since Duy's been in Japan for vacation we took a group out to Y's, which was weird because we had a lot of old IES alumni and Shin-san even showed up. On Saturday I went out to Chiba Park again with Andy and Brian to play frisbee and hang out. Had a bigger group this time so that was pretty cool. Hit up Kappa after it started getting dark and pigged out on cheap sushi.
On Sunday I went to Ariake Coliseum for the first time to see the Japanese pro basketball championships. Bryan was able to swing tickets for this - and I am not joking about the name - the bj League Final Four. Yes. The professional basketball conference here is called Basketball Japan, or bj for short.
I showed up for the second half of the 3rd place game, which was Osaka vs Hamamatsu. It was strange to be watching a professional basketball in Japan, since half of the players were Americans. The crowd wasn't super into it, but it was still a fun time. The final game was much better and much more exciting, and the crowd was actually going nuts the whole time. The final was between the Tokyo Apache and the (Okinawa) Ryukyu Kings. The head coach for the Apache is Kobe Bryant's dad, and the star of the Kings is Jeff Newton, who used to play at IU, so that was kind of cool. I think Nick Roberts is also in love with him.
Even though the Kings never lost the lead the entire game, it was still sweet to watch and even though our seats weren't super close or anything they were still really good seats. I think venues in Japan are just small compared to ones in the US, so it seems like you always have better seats than you would back home. The Kings won the championship 89-82. What a great bj day.
One final post about the Hong Kong/Macau/China trip (probably). I think I covered all the major stuff I did in the overly long entries I wrote before this one. It was a great trip and I definitely want to go back again sometime. I think getting a group of people to go one day would be ideal, since we can just order ridiculous amounts of food and all only pay a few bucks.
Thinking back to HK, I think the subways and trains over there and even in China might rival if not beat the Japanese ones. If there are any Japanese people reading this right now I'm sure they're thinking to themselves "that's impossible" but it's pretty true. HK's trains seemed cleaner, bigger, and smoother. Sure HK has a lot less area to cover than say, JR East, but I was still really happy with it. I don't think I ever waited for any train more than 4 or 5 minutes. The only negative is that there are no luggage racks up top in the cars, which doesn't make sense. There are LCD screens inside the cars that show of course loads of advertisements but also some other programming. Japanese trains pretty much have only weather and stuff, but the train in China had an America's Funniest Home Videos-type show on that was pretty funny because the category was "animals attacking men below he belt."
Cell phone etiquette is also totally diferent from Japan. Whereas pretty much everyone in Japan follows the rules of putting their phones on silent or vibrate in public places, HK seems to be the complete opposite. I can't read much Chinese, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were signs in the trains saying "Please turn your phone's ringer ALL THE WAY UP." There was an almost constant barrage of C-Pop MP3 ringtones anywhere you go, with people always picking up their phones and starting conversations (WEI!) wherever they are, yelling enthusiastically into their handsets. This is probably because the average Cantonese conversation is the same decibel and excitement level as a Japanese person trapped in a burning building full of children. In Japan on the train if someone gets a call you see them cupping their phones to their head as if it were a severed ear, whispering quietly, ashamed that their silent conversation might be inconveniencing someone else.
OK I think that's everything about the HK trip for now. I need to get to bed.
Let me share with you some pictures from my most recent travels: I saw the Pyramids, the Statue of Liberty, that Jesus statue, the Coliseum, Niagara Falls, the Taj Mahal, Sydney Opera House, the Eiffel Tower, Easter Island, Angkor Wat, the Grand Canyon, Stonehenge, and a bunch of other famous world landmarks. Pretty impressive, right?
Well it would be, if this wasn't all in the same afternoon in some theme park in Shenzhen, China.
Last Monday I took the East Rail from Hong Kong up to the border into China to check things out. Ari told me about this park called Window of the World that has replicas of most of the world monuments and landmarks all crammed into one park. A lot of the replicas are just small models, but there are some pretty big ones. Eiffel Tower I think was one of the largest, since it's kind of like the park mascot. The park was cheesy as hell but still a pretty cool way to spend an afternoon. I only had one day in China and wanted to do some shopping in the evening so I kind of did a quick tour of the park in one afternoon. I got to see almost everything I think.
After walking around in the sun seeing replicas of all the landmarks of the world in one day, I headed back to the station near the border where there is a giant shopping center similar to Ya Show in Beijing, full of small shops selling bootleg and fake stuff. It's called Luoho and it's this giant building immediately in front of you after leaving the station into Shenzhen. I didn't buy too much this time, some DVDs, some shirts, and a pair of shoes. Like Ya Show you have to bargain with everyone, which is half the fun right there. I got the fake shoes I bought down from 400 RMB to less than 100. The guy also offered me one of his sisters to take as my wife for free but I just wanted the shoes. Food in China is also even cheaper than Hong Kong I think - I had BBQ pork for dinner and it was like 3 or 4 bucks US.
Last Sunday I decided against just walking around aimlessly in Hong Kong (which wouldn't necessarily be a bad idea) and decided to take the ferry out to Macau. Macau is technically a separate "special administrative region of China," meaning that I'd need to bring my passport to go through customs. That worked for me, since my Passport is filling up fast and I want to get some new pages added soon anyway.
After taking the hotel's free shuttle to the general vicinity of the China Ferry pier, I still ended up wandering for about 45 minutes trying to find the right pier. I asked someone and their answer was "go to the shiny gold building," which made me think I was actually trapped in some kind of weird video game. Anyway after a detour through a pretty nice mall and eating Chinese-style curry for lunch, I arrived at the golden pier and hopped a boat to Macau. The guy I asked was apparently not lying. The ferry only takes about an hour, and the ride was really nice. I think I slept most of the way.
Of course the gold building is the boat to casino island.
Arriving in Macau doesn't feel like you're in a different country from Hong Kong at all. It looks pretty much the same, but they have their own currency. However this currency is pretty useless if you're only going to the casinos like I did, since all the games are played in Hong Kong dollars. Macau is a really old Portugese colony and has a lot of historical sights and stuff, but I spent most of my afternoon at the Sands Casino, which is yet another huge shiny gold building. The inside was pretty similar to what I remember from Las Vegas, only without the cigar smoke and free alcohol. Also 90% of the people were Chinese/Asian, and 90% of those people were senior citizens. I put a limit on myself for the day's gambling from the get-go, and was actually doing pretty good at one point playing roulette and $100 HKD a hand blackjack. And of course I lost most of that by the evening.
The games were pretty much what I expected, but baccarat seemed to be predominant. Also sic-bo and some dice game that I have no idea about. There was also War, as in the card game played by kids who can't play real card games. Except in the casino the minimum bet is $100. There were also dancers on the bar most of the time (wearing clothes of course), but during breaks they were playing a BoA DVD. It felt weird to be sitting in China listening to a Korean girl sing in Japanese. Quick note: the McDonald's inside Sands sells Egg McMuffins at any time of day, which is amazing. The HK ones do too, but this was where I made the discovery initially.
I started and ended my Macau trip at Sands, but in between I also walked around the Fisherman's Wharf area there, which was mostly tourist traps but with some cool buildings. There was an old-style Chinese castle, a volcano, some funky stone gates, and a bunch of Babylonian architecture that was part of another casino. The volcano had an arcade in the basement that was dirt cheap so I played some Street Fighter there in the wrong aspect ratio. I felt like I was in high school through since you have to buy tokens to use any of the arcade machines. (Exhilarama in Crestwood Mall was pretty cool the first few years.) I also went over to the Golden Dragon casino, which is super local with almost no English signs or instructions anywhere, and almost exclusively baccarat. Also I'm pretty sure that everything in the building above the 5th floor was some form of brothel. Karaoke in China (KTV) is not the same as karaoke in Japan.
After getting the 9:30PM boat back to Hong Kong, I checked into my second hotel (cheaper and more stuff in the area). It was pretty late so I just went to Temple Street and got some awesome food at a street restaurant. Beef chow fun (乾炒牛河) might be one of my favorite noodle dishes ever. Also this whole big plate cost me like USD $3.
