picked this up the other day in Ueno. Couple years back this was the design on a Burton snowboard, which I really want, but am pretty sure that it'll be close to impossible to find one.
the designer's name is Hiroshi Fujiwara, who is a big shot in the J-street-fashion industry. Kind of interesting to see a Disney product altered because as we all know, Disney is about uniformity at all costs.
Wow, what a great day today. It's been getting colder and colder, but today. . .awesome. A good 78 degrees and sunny. Just finished washing my clothes, and sending out job apps. Next on the schedule is some quality time with COD WAW. [SNSD]Skubz.
Anyway, before that happens I will tell you about Christmas in Japan.
Being that it's 78 degrees, it feels exactly like Christmas time for me. Others may think otherwise unless you're from the Southern Hemisphere, I guess. Japan has being gearing up for Christmas, no, not gearing up, they just changed the channel from Halloween to Christmas. No lie, in the span of 24 hours, pumpkins were gone, and pine trees were up. Taken yesterday at LOFT
That's what happens when you don't have any Native Americans to give you squash and corn. Nothing holding your back from getting to that golden period for retailers. So, I guess Japan gets a whole extra month of Christmas shopping. Doesn't matter cause nobody really gets presents here. The only people that get presents are those in a relationship excluding married people. You don't even get presents from your family members here. Christmas in Japan is similar to the Junior Prom. There is a countdown that begins right about now that says you better find someone quick before all the good ones get taken. Nobody wants to go stag on Christmas eve. There are a lot of events that go on during Christmas eve, which is a much more important day that Christmas day, such as candle lighting, looking at Christmas lights (called illuminations here), and eating KFC and cake. All done of course in pairs with that lucky someone you just hooked up with around November.
Things associated with Christmas in Japan: Kentucky Fried Chicken Christmas Cake Illuminations
That's pretty much it. Pre-orders on the Colnel's chicken buckets start Nov. 22. Get in line quick.
So that's Christmas in a nutshell. What do you expect when it's like 1% Christians.
Concerts: Japan, more specifically Tokyo, is a great venue for music/arts. There is something going on every week. You could probably go to a concert every day if you had enough money and earplugs. It was always a big event when someone would come to Hawaii, and I was living on Maui, which was even lesser of a draw for major artists. Although, I do remember that Pearl Jam made it over once. Missed out on that one. I don't really care to go watch concerts cause it's such a hassle for a lot of money. The other week, I half grudgingly went along to a Beyonce concert. At the moment, I live about fifteen minutes walking distance to Saitama Super Arena, which is one of the top three venues in the Tokyo area, so a lot of events come through here. Great for me, sucks for everyone else in Tokyo. It'll take you an hour just to get through the ticket gates at the train station after a large event. So Beyonce was coming through, and for a hundred bucks decent seats near ground level about half-way back. That place was packed out. I gotta say that I was pleasantly surprised, in fact really surprised. Beyonce live is very very different from Beyonce on youtube. The production and cast is unbelievable. On top of that, Beyonce is one of the greatest live performances I have ever seen. She was probably lip syncing some stuff, but a lot of it was live, and she was perfect. It really sounded like the stuff that comes off of the poor man's itunes. Her band is an all female group, but probably half of them could rip me in half if they so chose to. All very talented, though. Throughout the whole thing B. was interacting with the crowd, throwing a bunch of props as souvenirs, and even picking up a dropped cellphone that was probably bootlegging the performance and finding the owner in a sea of outstretched arms all while singing. I would def. go again. Props to her production crew.
Also some pics of us at Sekai No Yamachan. Specializing in Nagano type foods.
You know that Hawaii has it's own flavor of McyD's, right? Only in Hawaii can you get a portuguese sausage eggs and rice breakfast + little packets of shoyu with a fruit punch to wash it all down. Somebody's description of the menu that I didn't even read
It looks like it has a burger, an egg, and I think bacon. I think that it's only at that one Mcdonalds cause I haven't seen anything about it on other sites. I'll have to go try it. An egg you say? How is that related to Hawaii? I would think that a ham and pineapple burger would be closer to what people consider Hawaiian table fare, but an egg? Well, you have to understand that the most well-known hawaiian food this side of the pacific is the Hilo born and raised Loco Moco. There are restaurants here that base their entire menu around the humble LocoMoco, so when it came time for someone to put together a Hawaii burger, there was no question what would go on it.
strange strange strange. I guess it's like mochiko chicken, which is non-existent here. Or teriyaki sauce, which is very rare here. or Tomoame, which I have never seen here.
Japanese TV has an interesting system. It reminds me a lot of elementary school days in the way that people come in and out of the tv circuit just as fast as fads used to go in and out of our lunch recesses.
Elementary school fads: I don't know how it was at your school, but at Pukalani El. every month or so there was a new thing that every 10 year old kid must have. Off the top of my head they were, adidas windbreakers, bouncy balls, marbles, milk covers, pocket video games, fluorescent yellow highlighters, binaca blast, yo-yos, boxes of pencils, and I'm sure I'm leaving a lot out. One week, I would have crown royal bag full of milk covers, and the next week, my milk covers would be sitting under my bed never to be used again because they were replaced with bamboocha marbles, and ball bearings.
Japanese TV: As with the fads of Pukalani El., Japanese tv cycles through celebrities on a monthly basis. These celebrities become crazy famous for a short period of time, and then slowly fade off into special appearances at the countryside shopping mall. A lot of them, I really don't know how they get on tv cause they have no visible talent whatsoever. In an ironic way, these people who can't sing, can't act, and aren't funny are called "talents."
Here is a girl that I am seeing a lot on tv recently. Her name is Britney Hamada, and she is a self-proclaimed homeless gyaru. Her homepage
Apparently, she wanders around Shibuya by day, and sleeps in internet cafes and karaoke rooms at night. I don't know how true that is cause she seems kinda chubby for a Japanese girl, let alone a homeless one. But whatever the case, she's on tv promoting herself as a homeless gyaru (gyarus are overly fashionable young girls). One thing she can do though is draw. She draws comics for a, I think, weekly magazine about gyarus in Shibuya. I don't find her interesting in anyway, but it's like I can't escape her. She's always on tv, and everybody is playing up to her like they've known her forever. I give her a couple more months.
Earlier this week in my conversation class, I decided to talk about "fair" and "unfair."
So after explaining the meanings, I tried to get them to give examples. Man, sometimes it's tough getting people to act of their own volition here. It's a simple enough concept, but . . .ah anyway, so I just started giving them examples of my own. Stuff like being born into a well off family, and being born into a really crappy situation, or how girls can play off of their helplessness to get things their way. So that was how things ended on Monday.
Couple days later I'm watching some korean variety programs on youtube, and one of the shows that I really think is funny is "Family Outing." It's a bunch of celebrites/singers/MCs that act as a family and go out into the countryside to house-sit, while the owners take a well-deserved vacation somewhere. It's a great concept for a reality program.
One of the characters is Hyori Lee, who has been Korea's "it" girl for sometime. I remember hearing about her like ten years ago.
On the Family Outing show she doesn't wear makeup, and just wears regular clothes, and I swear she is the biggest tita. haha. She is the polar opposite of her sexy singer image. Then, I got to thinking about fair/unfair again, and how unfair it is that girls can change their whole image so easily.
Hair Makeup Clothes
Those three things can transform 80% of the girls into something thought of as society to be desirable. Three things, that's all it takes. Well, that's not all--there's things like presentation, and attitude, but to keep things simple those are the three biggies.
Now, take it to guys to change their
Hair Makeup Clothes
Makeup is out leaving us with hair and clothes. Changing these will give guys a different image, but I don't think it's even comparable to the props girls get when they change the same things.
How unfair is that? Girls can become more desirable with a couple hundred bucks whereas guys are, well. . .screwed with what we got. haha. So unfair. I think I'm going to bring this up at my next class cause Japanese girls are pros at this.
Here is a music video of Hyori's
Here is Hyori in Family Outing
She could be any one of my friends from Maui cause you know Maui only got Mokes and Titas. haha. Nah nah.
So pepsi has decided to pump out another crazy flavor just for the heck of it. I guess they have some extra money floating around to be putting out these weird flavors even though they know that it tastes horrible. I think they only do one shipment of these types of things cause as soon as the store runs out it doesn't get restocked.
This time it's azuki flavor. haha. I don't really know what to say about this except that azuki was never meant to be turned into drinkable form. Tastes just like it sounds. Still had to buy it though. haha.
I remember that one of the best things about going from Pukalani El. to Kalama was that we could use pens. We always had to use pencils in elementary school, so I felt like I was finally growing up when I could write in my notebooks with pen. The only thing was that when you use whiteout, it gets all over, and gets bumpy, and then when you try to write over it you just end up scratching it off. What good was whiteout for besides writing on your Mead notebook with it? Then I remember discovering an eraseable pen. It could erase just like a pencil except that the eraser was black colored, and was kind of hard. It didn't really erase all that well, too.
Fast forward 20 years, and we have the NEW eraseable pen. Well. . .I dunno if it's new, but I just bought an eraseable pen today. It's called the friXion made by pilot. It actually does a really good job of erasing. I can't even tell there was something written there prior. The weird thing is that it doesn't leave any eraser shavings. Who knows where it goes. Somehow they engineered an ink that would stay visible at room temp. but then when heated up it disappears. So when you rub it with the little rubber eraser thing it disappears. Pretty cool. What will they come up with next.
