Tenacious D: Tribute

I like their music. Good tunes and interesting lyrics. Not too deep or serious. Just trying to entertain.

Yozakura - night time cherry blossom viewing

This evening I went to a nice small park near to my home. I went for yozakura. It means viewing cherry blossoms in the evening/night.
The cherry blossom are finally out in force and very beautiful.
I like the night time as it is silent and the moon was out and the lanterns were lit so the atmosphere was just right.

Lots of people come out to sit under the cherry blossom trees with friends and just relax, eat, drink and be merry.


I brought with me such food as negitori yakitori (chiken pieces and welsh onion sgments, cooked on kebab sticks and covered with a sweet sauce), harumaki (fried spring rolls), gyouza (fried dumplings), fried chicken, pizza, kakifry (oysters, fried in breadcrumbs and served with lemon and mayonnaise) and of course, beer. A few beers.
I choose YonaYona ale and Hoegaarden white ale for this evening. Nice.

This is the tree I rested under:

The moon was out and shining bright. It was about half full and very nice.
Here is a shot of the moon through the trees:

The lanterns were lit and were so beautiful.
It all just added to the tranquility of the evening.

There were some other groups that represented a cross section of Japanese:

• a group of office workers, young and old, in suits and fresh from the office, sitting together, eating and drinking from produce bought at the convenience store.
• a group of youths, scooters parked nearby, sitting together in a confused state of traditional and modern, doing what they were supposed to be doing as Japanese, but rebelling in their own little way (e.g. pretending to smash some wooden boards but hurting their hands, riding off together to the shops to buy more booze and revving their little scooters as they went - then coming back together, as if too scared to be on their own).
• a group of young adults, perhaps on a dating party.
• a group of friends, eating and playing badminton under the blossoms, in the light of the lanterns.
  
• the foreigner, watching it all.
  

It was a most pleasant evening.

Here's a final photo, showing a few groups under the trees:

Not a bad night last Sat night with BF (UPDATED)

My friend 'Bearf*cker', is staying with me for 2 weeks.
His friend also came down from Fukushima for the weekend. We went out in Tokyo last Saturday night.

The boys start their evening's journey.

As often happens with me, I lost the main group and met Scottish Neil in Shibuya ahead of the prearranged meeting time. Even though I was late to meet up Scottish Neil, I managed to get to the bar about 15 minutes ahead of him, so I'd gone through my beer by the time he arrived. Quite a few beers later the guys started arriving. Eventually, the whole gang was present and more or less accounted for. A few other gangs kinda joined us on a couple of occasions - there were a few people I bumped into who were with their friends and we kind of ...no. This is not sounding right at all.
Can't seem to type this account coherently.
Feels all drawn out.
Brain, slowing down...no feeling...need inspiring music or more coffee or some good Italian wine or a... well, I don't know but I'm sure upon reading this pathetic attempt of retelling the events that transpired on the 23rd March.
I've survived 2 days of 2 guys staying in my place and I think...I'm...changing...

The boys are now somewhere in Ueno, conversing in unimpeded NAmerican speak (I presume it involves the words 'hockey', 'bears', 'took', 'poutine' and occasional 'ay?').
I am to meet up with them later tonight, with some fine Italian wine and thenceforth we shall proceed to a house party. Think there will be at least 2 Japanese flamenco dancers and a Japanese French chef is cooking for us.

Where was I?
Inspiration.
Hang on...

...mmm...Mozart's balls taste so good. Just popped one in my mouth.

A small present I brought back from Vienna.

Kettle's boiled.
PG tips.
Good old British tea.

Aah...that's the stuff!
Tea is very important and we in the UK take it seriously.
For example, here are 2 highly respected British connoseurs, discussing the goold old cuppa:

Right...
Personally, I used to add milk first, but now I'm more experienced, I always add milk last.
However, if you use a teapot, then definitely put milk in first.

"To teapot, or not to teapot...that is the question."

The gang was more or less assembled - in the street.
I had the marvellous idea to visit the toilet in the convenience store (a mere 20m away), rather than wait 15 minutes to use the bar's facilities.
This leads to what is probably the most interesting and exciting picture of the evening:





Aah, good times were had by all.







So I grabbed me some beer for the road and it turned out the road journey was all of 20m because everyone saw my beer and thought "Great idea!"
Hence we all congregated outside said convenience store, inconveniencing customers for about half an hour.



Oh!! Look at the time!! (well, you can't, but it's getting time for me to get out that door and head for this party-to-be)


Check this post in while and I'll add to it - promise.

Okay, so now it's Thursday and I'm gonnna update this post.

After that last shot was taken, another friend of mine appeared on the scene - with his gang of nefarious vagabons and such and such.
Here I was, in between two rival gangs for my attention.
It was a standoff.
Seeing as I wasn't Mexican
(but I've been to Mexico - was in Cancun when MTV filmed Reality Cancun and I drank at their soecially constructed beachside bar with another British friend as the MTV film crew filmed the high jinks going on yards from us, with half naked girls dancing on the bar, mexican barmen going crazy making whooping and monkey noises, me regularly relieving myself in the conveniently masking ocean spray, whilst avoiding the sharks that come into the shallows to feed at night and avoiding being

chatted up by the ridiculously drunk and even more ridiculously stupid and brain damaged America Spring break teenagers who were convinced that some wild excitement, a few STDs and possible sexual organ as well as kidney, liver and brain damage was what they really needed at that time in their confused, naive lives and I think that could be one of the longest sentences I've typed in a while), this wasn't such a big deal.

I just divided my time between the two groups and became the hostess with the mostess. Unfortunately, I didn't have much. I was more like the host who is toast. I doubt if you know what I went through to type that last sentence. Halfway through, I suddenly 'breathed in' the coffee I was drinking and spent about a minute trying not to choke on my Colombian roast. I'm still here.

So i spent some time getting to know who everyone was and we all more or less formed one largish mass outside the convenience store.
A little while alter, as often happenes, the 2 groups split. The other guys seemed to think that if they entered a cheapish bar then they would have more chance of meeting girls (although personally, thier chances of meeting a girl who wouldn't mind being talked to by a group of 6 or 7 large, burly and obviously horny westerners is possibly a little bit above my chances of keeping my sentences under ten words - unless of course, shes the kind of woman that is actively seeking a gang of 10 horny guys, in which case I'd advise the 'genltemen' concerened to have made sure that they are up to date with all relevant innoculations and to question carefully the nefarious activities that their 'buddies' have been inovlved in and hence reassess the risk factors and this is probably why girls don't talk to me much), so they moved to an underground bar.

Scottish Neil somehow followed them, but by this point, he was ever so slightly sh*tfaced drunk.
I don't know how they managed to peel him off his 'motorbike'. There was a large motorised scooter parked nearby and of course, anyhting like that is a magnet for dunk boys. Before you could say 'Och that darn Mochan has gen and dunitt agen and ah dunnnar think he's everrrr gonna come off that thing', he had moutned said metal steed and was proceeding to criuse down that wonderful highway 69 in his mind.

He was playing on this thing for at least 10 minutes - then he was gone. Back to his underground lair where the beers were approximately 400yen and the fish and chips were warm and served on a small plate.
I later discovered that he had later left that bar and not paid his bill, leaving the cost of the beers and fish and chips to the group of New Zealand/American/Greek guys he had temporoarily joined. Tsk, tsk. All I could do was apologise for my 'honorable friend' and give them 500yen as part payemnt of friends debt. I think that helped to ease the tension and mistrust that they regarded the rest of us with. Thanks, Neil.

Well,a short time later, mos tof hte original group decided to move on to The Hub. The Hub is the name given to a chain of fake British bars across Japan. There are 2 or 3 in Shibuya. They wwent to the larger of them. I first went back to the underground bar to let my friends know where we were going, in case they needed more guys to charge their food and drink to them. Needless to say, we never saw them a gain that night.

Got to the Hub and the guys were already drinking.

I ordered a pint of Kirin Ichiban shibori 'lager' (though it's made with rice and cornstarch, as are most of hte 'beers' over here)　and a shot glass.
It was time to recreate an old memory.
Our Friend James has been into bodybuilding for quite some time now and the last time we were all out together was perhaps 4 or more years ago. It was also in The Hub.
We were all drinking lots of beer, as we usually do. James was not drinking much, but he decided to have a whisky. It was very strong, and when he finished, we decided to give him some of our beer.
We all have this memory of us with pint glasses full and this big, huge guy standing among us with a shot glass of beer.
It was so cute.
We give him stick constantly about that.
Here is my attempted reconstruction of said moment:





Okay, so it's not a very good reconstruction.
Basically, you had to be there.















After that, we went to the only Candian bar in Shibuya, The Maple Leaf.

Click HERE for a map and a coupon for a free beer.

By the time we got there, the Maple Leaf was dead. We had one drink then our numbers dwindled even more and we wound our way to the horrible and scary Gaspanic (or AssPanic, perhaps a more apt name).This was the small one, underground, near the main crossing. Horrible place. Small, cramped, full or either American soldiers/sailors/African guys trying to pass themselves off as Americans and teenage girls who are tring to be cool (2 that night I noticed were just standing there, chewing gum. Looking around the room for guys to notice them and just casually pumping their crotches in what they thought was a sexy and alluring dance but just looked like they were asking guys to treat them like objects (and bloody stupid ones at that). They can't have been more than 16. No doubt by the end of the evening, they would have both found what they thought they wanted. Not the best way to learn about life and all the crap that is out there). My friends and I just stood at the small bar and drank a beer or two.
Here's a shot of James (again), with his GayPride cocktail.

"Ooh, James! You go, girl!!!"

After our wonderful, soul lifting experiences at GasPanic, we wondered over to Club Zanadu. This place was a popular haunt of expats for many years. mostly because girls often went there.
This was the method behind our madness.
We paid the 1500yen to get in a nd I got my free drink.
The boys were on a mission and were off dancing before you could say Carmen Miranda.
I more or less sat dwon and had a few mediocre glasses of sake and a beer or two.
This is about all I bothered to take iwth my phone camera. Not good qualtiy, sorry.
The place is nt so bad. A mix of guys and gals. Most of the ladies being Japanese and the men being about 70/30 Japanese to foreign. There was this one huge guy jumping around on the dancefloor, but he got tired after an hour or so.
BF and Mark had targeted this nice French lady and her Japanese companion. Very young and also very atttractive and it semeed, reasonably intelligent. BF was playing the wingman but unfortunately, all that reulted was one email address for Mark, who was about to leave to the North East of Japan, whilst the French girl was leaving for France. Oh well.
Still, James and I had a dance (not together).
I danced more towards the end of the evening. When I dance, I put a monkey to shame. However, when I start, I don't stop. At one point, I had a circle going of 4 Japanese guys who also realised they had no chance of pulling girls and so opted for the next best thing which was find a foreigner who they thought was cool and instantly befriending him and doing high fives and imitating his ridiculous dancing style whilst trying unsuccessfully to breakdance. It was fun for this Welsh monkey to have some more monkey companions and just go nuts for a while. I think it's great that most guys here can accept you as a friend so fast and just do away with any macho crap and just have a blast. Thanks, guys. Hope I didn't embarass you too much.

Having given the frnech girl and her companion directions to other clubs in the area, I thought my other firends would 'take the hint' and offer to leave with them but nope. Not even when the girls came back and then hung around a while and eventually left. Mission not accomplished, fellas. They were there. Crashed and burned.
Never mind. They still had James and I.
Dejected and despondent, they trudged out of the underground club and we all staggered off to have a communal parting breakfast at McDonalds.

Lots more to come and I'll bore you, entertain you, shock you and astound you!!!


Mmmmmmmmebe....

"My mom said I could!"

Awesome stuff, from France. Love the bit with the chainsaw. The look on his face is classic.
At the end, he asks his mother "Momma, can I put the cat in the washing machine?"
Of course, she answers "Yes, yes yes! Oh god, yes!!!"

Awesome new sport: Rockdiving

Guess who's coming to dinner?

Well, maybe breakfast, but I hope not - I haven't finished cleaning yet.
'Bearf*cker' is coming to stay, for about 2 weeks.
An old, dear friend from ways back when I first came to Japan.
He's since moved on to better and bigger things. He's now doing something or other.
He's over here with work and has managed to grab an extra couple of weeks, so he's gonna crash at my place. I just have to finish cleaning...

When BF was here, he occasionally got absolutely sh*tfaced out of his mind (didn't we all?).
His long relished adventures with Mr.Chuhi knew no bounds, but eventually he had to leave this place and move on.
Now he's back and I'll be keeping an eye open for any return of old Crazyhorse.
Needless to say, the digicam won't leave my side.

Here he is, in Tsubohachi (his local haunt).
The guy working there recognized him from over three years ago! I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing.

BF, it's great to see you again!
Here's to an interesting week or two.

Here he is, less than an hour after meeting him, in all his old glory:

p.s. It must be noted that we were having a normal intelligent (as much as I can manage) conversation just before then, so the clip doesn't really do him justice.
But then, that's what friends are for. Thanks for playing along, BF.

Kirin The Gold - or the bronze?

Today I bought Kirin's new beer - The Gold.

It's supposedly an all malt pilsner (as opposed to almost all the other 'beers' out there which contain rice and corn starch to help make up the sugars that become alcohol - a silly tax law in Japan lets beer companies save moeny by using less barley in their beers. The result is happoshite and other such cheap crap. The basic drinker doesn't mind, as they save money and still get drunk. Well, I still hold out for the real stuff).
Anyway, I decided to give this 'beer' a whirl.


The result?
Well, it has a higher than average maltiness to it, I'd give it that.
Dry taste too, but nothing special. Still empty, bodywise. Slightly above average.
5.5/10. No suprise, really.

I'm gonna wait until the 4th of the 4th (April) to taste what I hope is going to be a nice beer, from the guys at Sapporro:

Drama in Hiyoshi - fire.

A fire broke out above a soba restaurant in Hiyoshi tonight.


It was almost under control by the time I got there but I managed to take a few pictures and get some video.

Hopefully I wasn't acting in a sick way. I take no pleasure in other peoples' pain.
Despite there being 2 ambulances on the scene, I'm pretty sure no one was seriously hurt.
I'll check the news later.
Friends say the flames were shooting up high into the sky.

I could see the smoke from a kilometre away. It started at about 7pm. There were at least 8 fire trucks and some police cars taking up half of the main Tsunashima kaido road.
Of course, straffic was stopped temporarily. There was quite a crowd out, watching 'the show'. Hopefully this can make us more careful about switching off the gas, using hot blankets or smoking in the home. It only needs one mistake.

I, myself have come home on at least FIVE occasions when either my iron was still on or the saucepan I used to use to boil water for tea and coffee was glowing red hot. Needless to say, I now have an electric kettle.

Here's some footage:

All done! Now, I can finally be a James Bond supervillain

I had my final visit to the dentist today.

It took me four visits to finally finish my root canal treatment and the metal cap that has been placed over my hollowed out stump of a dead shell of what was once a lovely white tooth.

It cost me over 40,000yen. That's about 200pounds or $400!!!
Not chicken feed. Especially not for me.
Just one tooth.
Now that my mouth is full of metal, I feel confident that I can finally apply for the role of the super villain in the next James Bond movie.

Wish me luck...

I'm off to karaoke - alone - again.

Sad, sad man.
(^-^)/
Oh no. I just typed one of those faces, didn't I?

Bearf*cker is coming! - no, he's here!!!

My good old friend from my JET days,'BearF*cker' is back in Japan!
He's gonna be meeting up with me soon. We both used to live where I still live now.

Screw it- I'm gonna do it!

"Do what?" you may ask.
Well, whatever it is, I'm definitely gonna try and attempt to pull off a successful go at doing this... thing that I'm probably most likely going to do.

From tomorrow.
Or perhaps the day after.
No, I have a dentist appointment on the 15th.
Okay, from the 16th.
Yes, on the 16th, I'm definitely gonna do it.

Well, one of the things I'm going to do, anyway.

Yosh!!!!

Basically Japanese for "Yes!!!"
It's lunchtime.
I jsut finished my last lesson.
Next lesson is in April.
Got me some time off.
Hopefully this time I will do something constructive, but I think I'll probably still just watch TV and sleep.

We'll see.

A message to all my friends who are working hard and don't get a holiday (but who probably get more money than me): "Sorry, and see you in Bali!!!!!"

Gonna have another cup of Joe (coffee).

Home at last!!!

Ah! Left the bath running!!

- that's better.

I got home about 20 minutes ago.
Sooooo tired..
Had adventures.
The Big Dirty was not quite as planned (what a suprise, in my life).
After all this cycling with tiny little pedals, carrying my bag and bike up and down endless flights of steps, the stress involved in gettting my bike and bag back (tell about it soon), concentrating on directions and all that from less than 2 hours sleep the night before...

I've got myself a nice cool Becks and I'm going in the bath for a couple of days.

My body feels like I'm 98years old.
After half an hour in the bath, I'll look the part as well.

Where did I put that beer?...

Gonna try and get some pics of the eclipse tonight/this morning

Have to try and wake up at about 5. It's 3:34 now, so maybe no sleep is better?
Think I'll try for 2 hours sleep and trust in my self discipline (it has only failed me every single day of my life so far) to wake up.
sunrise is 6:08 here.
The moon is set to be partially eclipsed at around 5:18, almost fully eclipsed at about 6:30, so I hope to be able to get at least a partially eclipsed moon shot for you guys.

Gonna set up the tripod outsdie on my balcony.
Right now I have a gorgeous view of the moon.
Not sure how much of it I'll see in three hours, though.
I'll try my best.
This is a once in a longtime chance.

Still got THE BIG DIRTY to do later this morning and the rest of the day.
Gonna be a tough day.


Gonna sneak outside now and get a 'before' picture.
Where's my camera?

Hope the police don't arrest me.
Maybe I'll be able to sneak one in of Mrs.Tanaka, coming out of the shower?



Here is a shot I took just now (4:20) of the moon:


I used my canon s2is 12x optical zoom digital camera at a 5m setting.
Not so bad.

Will try later if I can wake up.
Should I go to sleep?

It's on!!!!

Looks like it's finally on.
It's going to happen.
"What's going to happen?" you may ask.
"Is it the lunar eclipse?" - no.
"Dick Cheney is going to propose to George Bush - finally?" - nope. Not even close.

Its...

...THE BIG DIRTY.

It's on.
It's finally on.



(see link in menu on right or click here for more details)

Great reply to the beatboxing flutist:

Sometimes, America scares me.

Jazz flute aint just for p*ssies:

Ron Bergundy was right.

Listen to the pokemons: