Only in Japan

Here's an interesting find from the land of the rising sun...



Yes, that is indeed Ice Cucumber flavoured Pepsi. It does smell something like cucumber, and the taste holds a hint of cucumber, but other than that it's pretty Pepsi-like. FYI, cucumbers are meant to evoke a feeling of coolness, hence (I assume) this odd flavour.

The other treat is a salted ice-cream bar. Yes, salted. Actually, there's a well documented connection between salty and sweet, like chocolate covered pretzels. Or... well, maybe not so well documented. Anyway, it's surprisingly good.

Also, perhaps I just wanted to test out my new camera.

Damn you Namco!!!!

OMFG I think I just came.



Damn it why the hell is it an XBox 360 exclusive? Rumour has it it will come to PS3, but those are only rumours. Microsoft has already even developed a flightstick throttle combo for it, so unless Sony is following suit, does that mean it will remain only on Xbox? I dunno if i can wait...

Professional business attire does not mean come to work dressed like a vagrant.

OK, so maybe it's not that bad, but I feel the need to rant a bit.

This past week, I went to Kobe for a JET conference for recontractees. The conference was fine, if a little warm that's to the A/C set to 25c throughout the building. Some really good workshops, some not so good. Ultimately, I think it was a valuable conference on professional development.

Yeah, professional.

While I realize that not everyone agrees on what exactly professionalism is, it seems that some sort of minimum requirement is necessary. Consider that the conference was for recontractees, people who want to do another year on JET. While for some people it's just a chance to fuck around and make more money, to many of us, it also signifies a greater commitment to our own jobs, even if they are contractual in nature.

Greater commitment doesn't necessarily mean that you need wed yourselves to your job, or throw you identity our the window in favour of conformity. Nor does it necessarily imply that JET is a career, though to a small percentage people it is a sort of feeder job into the world of EFL teaching. But if you make a commitment for another year, this means that you willingly play the role again of not only a representative of your home country, but of your school/CO as well.

Cargo shorts, untucked polo shirts, khaki pants, or running shoes do not fall under the realm of professional business attire, yet I saw an abundance of this in Kobe. There are some justifications I'm sure people cooked up for their attire: this is how I dress at work, or this is what is considered professional where I come from; or I'm not Japanese, so their conventions don't apply, or I don't want to lose my sense of identity; I didn't want to pack extra shoes because their heavy, or a shirt and tie are too hot for Japan; it's the last day of the conference and I didn't want to bother getting changed again or repacking my bags...

Ultimately, I think how you present yourself is indicative of how you view your commitment to your job. If you choose to be taken seriously, you will present yourself in that manner. Putting on a tie doesn't mean you lose your personality, a fact that is made plenty evident by the quality of some of the workshops I attended. But if you choose to dress like a tourist, then I have to wonder what kind of attitude you take with you into the office. Perhaps you do go to work with shorts and a t-shirt. That's fine if you're at work--I wouldn't want to run around the room with a bunch of 8-year-olds in a suit or tie either. Perhaps you dress in hawaiian shirts in your home country, as that's acceptable business attire. That's fine if you're back home.

But the simple fact of the matter is that you are NOT at your workplace, and you are NOT in your home country. You are at a professional business conference in a country where you are expected to dress appropriately for the occasion. I guarantee that those other teachers, who you work with and wear jeans and t-shirts to work with you, would be in their suits and ties if they were at a teachers conference.

This is a rant, so of course it is based almost purely on the distaste I felt at seeing people dressed like they were out walking the dog for whatever reason, especially when so many of us were in suits enduring the warm of a crowded hotel. Its sad that there's little real consequence to this, as the disapproving Japanese group eye has little or no effect on some people. But that doesn't stop me from wishing that something could be done about it. Photos are probably out of the question, as that would seem to smack of the sort of pseudo-fascist STASI-esque surveillance. Besides, we're adults right, and should know better. But a greater MEXT (Japanese Ministry of Education), or CLAIR (Council that in is charge of the JET Programme) presense might help curb some of the more excessive dressing habits.

It's a shame, because it's probably unprofessionalism like this which is helping destroy JET. The Programme already has a reputation for good pay for little or no work, and things like this can't help it. Assuming that the various Contracting Organizations get reports on what actually went on, it's no surprise that more and more places are opting for cheaper, probably more professional, non-JET ALT options like Interac.

OK, end rant.

Bah, lets finish this beast off...

It has been too long since I updated, but in defense I have been pretty busy at work. Where were we? Oh yes, day 3. We packed up, made a last trip to Akiba, got on the train and went home. Well, more things happened, like my trip to the gashapon toy shop for more otaku-memories (m4a1s for all my Gundams!), and as a souvenier a ticket stub from Akihabara Station.

Exhausted, we decided to nix the Nagasaki trip in favour of a more chill day downtown in Fukuoka, and the next day we were off to Beppu. Onsens galore, including the tourist trap "The Nine Hells" or whatever. De rigeur, but it was really a chance to walk around a small town. What better way to relax? Why an onsen of course! We found a pretty nice, large onsen and partook. I forget the name, but it featured this awesome "waterfall" bath, more a wading pool with several pipes high up on a wall hurling water down at you. If it sounds corny, it isn't. Let me tell you, this was one of the most relaxing experiences I have ever had. Like some sort of masseuse, kneading away at all the tension built up from the Shinkansen ride home. A note on the bullet train...never again! Next time I go to Tokyo, its airplane or bust.

Our trip home was eventful. We walked around for some 40 minutes or so, getting ourselves lost before we flagged down a taxi (AFAIK not normally done, but I'll attribute our ease to the presence of my friend) and headed back to the local station. Our longish trip back as interrupted a few stops away from home by some sort of Event at Hakata Station (notice the capital "E"). To this day I do not know what happened, but whatever it was, it caused our train to ride delay getting into Kokura (Kitakyushu City JR hub) by an hour, then an at least as long stop at Akama Station. Well enough of this shit, we decided. Jumping on a cab, we arrived home 2 hours and 20 minutes late and about $40 poorer. Oh well, at least we were home.

The next day, Ian was off to Kyoto and environs, which gave me some time to do some much needed housework. Ian returned 2 days later, and one last night in Fukuoka, with our last meal as an all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ, we capped off a very successful spring break.

Oh, last minute shenanigans. Ian almost missed his flight! My fault, as I underestimated how busy check in would be. Ian was through the security gate with some 5 minutes to spare :P

OK, so reflections? On Tokyo, I need to stop visiting and revisiting Akiba. But it's just so much damned fun, and it rekindled my interest in drawing. Beppu? Hmm, ok, onsens = really bad eczema. I had a month of hell after that, so no more for me.

Guess that wraps that up. As always, my photos.

More culture than you can shake a stick at!

As always, pics at the bottom of the post.

Day three we were up bright and early...relatively speaking. We were out the door by about 10AM. By now, I was pretty confident about navigating the Tokyo Metro system, so we made our way down to Tokyo Tower. We did the whole tour, up to the Observation Platforms 1 and 2, and I snapped the requisite pics. Honestly, it was more of a tourist thing, de rigeur as a "tourist". Though the grandparents with all their grandkids in tow made the appropriate oohs and ahhs, Tokyo Tower, a copy of the Eiffel Tower, has nothing on good ol' CN. Still, I got an appreciative chuckle from my elevator mates when the elevator cable went ka-thunk. It's completely normal, or so the helpful recording told us. Oddly enough, when I cried out in mock dismay, "Oh no, we're all gonna die!", it was in English. I guess that "Oh shit!" moment is universal regardless of language.

While at the tower, I had been playing email tag with my cousin. Thanks to an early-ending workday, she volunteered to be a tour-guide for the rest of the day. Noon-time was fast approaching, but we had both decided the day before to head back to Akihabara to search for that mysterious souvenier which would represent our time there. In retrospect, we should have checked out another district of Tokyo. Oh well. There's comfort for me in the familiar, and we were getting pretty cozy with the district.

We lunched at Go Go Curry. Despite the name, the mascot featured a gorilla. Go Go Curry caters to rushed Tokyo salarymen-types, but for the 750 yen I paid, I got a helluva good chicken-cutlet curry. The food-ticket vending machine however said it was econo-sized, so I'm scared to see what a jumbo-size looked like. It's odd, because I remember laughing when Ian told me that his friends had egged him on about how little he would eat here in Japan. If that was true, I'd be a twig by now.

We had about an hour and a half in Akihabara, where I managed to find one of the things I had come to Tokyo to find: a spare mag for my Marushin 1911 TRP. Ian managed to fill out some more of his list of things to find, but soon it was time to meet up with my cousin.

We headed out to Ryogoku Station. There, even from the platform, we were able to spy the gigantic Tokyo Edo Museum. Linking up with my cousin, we toured the museum. Though I had been skeptical about it, the museum was a lot of fun, and it was here that I would take the bulk of my pictures. I think it must have been all the interactive displays, as well as the overall environment, a welcome cry from the more sterile, and hence boring, Kyushu National Museum. We were there for a couple of hours, and in the end we visited the souvenier shop, where I got my omiyage (souveniers I am essentially required by Japanese custom to buy for the staff at school), as well as 3 prints which I would turn into a pseudo-triptych now adorning my wall at home.

With the sun starting its decline, the museum closing up, and us all sort of shopped out, what were we to do? My cousin suggested Ueno Park, to sit amongst the cherry trees, watching the blossoms and drinking some sake. It sounded wonderful to us, so off we went.

Ueno Park was a sort of urban oasis. The cherry blossoms, which down in Fukuoka were only starting to bloom thanks to the messed up weather we've been having (normally, they follow the jetstream and bloom south to north in orderly progression), covered nearly every tree. As the sun began to set the red lanterns came on, and we sat in a rosey-orange sea of cherry-viewing parties, with cups of heated sake to warm our hands.

It was soon dark, and despite this, the park was getting more crowded. We decided to duck out and find a place to eat. The last things on our itinerary were some sort of traditional Japanese dinner, then some karaoke. Having no real idea what that traditional dinner would be, we started to walk through the famous Ameyayakocho Market. I was delighted to find a donair vendor, the closest I think I may come to in Japan for Mediterranean food. Yet we were unable to think of anything to eat otherwise. Leaving the Market, we came out to one of the main roads, where we spied an okonomiyaki restaurant. OK, so it wasn't authentic Tokyo cuisine, but it was Japanese. We were treated to what was honestly a mediochre dining experience, and it wasn't until we were at the karaoke pub that we realized we should have just grabbed food there.

Oh well, on to singing. Karaoke was a mixed bag, mostly because our tastes in music varied so much. My cousin and I were a little closer matched, but she knows songs more popular in recent years, which I am only just beginning to discover. Ian on the other hand seemed to prefer oldies and classic rock, which I have little knowledge of. I stuck to my usual repertoire, so in the end we were just singing our own tunes.

It was a sort of a melancholy way to end the evening, but in the balance it was oddly fitting. Tomorrow we would be leaving busy Tokyo, so for now, it was time to get back to the hotel.

Pics here.

Akihabara Redux

Links once again to the pics I snapped at the bottom of this post. Pics now sorted by day.

The next morning we were up at the crack of noon. Thanks to a combination of the heat and the down duvet supplied to each bed, I managed to only get about 4 hours of shuteye. Waking up bleary-eyed, we decided to head out to the Imperial Palace, nominally a 10 minute walk from our hotel, but in reality a trip that took us 25 minutes as I searched for a convenient store for a cell-phone recharger that uses standard AAs. With my phone back up and being charged (albeit slowly), we headed into the Palace grounds proper.

The Imperial Palace grounds are huge. While I don't know the exact size, it was certainly enough to be a district of Tokyo in and of its own. A 10x10 city block area might be an exaggeration, but not by much. There wasn't a whole lot to see though, other than your usual tourist trappings. Beautiful trees, interesting looking buildings, the massive walls and ramparts, and the ruins of the old Edo donjon. OK, but only fun in the sense that playing tourist is fun. It was a good wind-down to our previous night, and walking around was a relaxing experience.

Things picked up when Jon and his buddies showed up, as things inevitably do when a bunch of young guys go anywhere. We revisited some of the places Ian and I had gone to, but soon we were off, back to Akihabara.

Despite my initial impressions, I was keen to head back there. After all, there is nary the geek or otaku that can resist the call of such a place, and I qualify under both columns. Our intention was to find one the shrines of otakudom, the maid cafe, and armed with fliers and maps in hand, we set off. The first place we checked (porn-shops not-withstanding), was an over-heated bust. Our next stop seemed more promising, but it was small and we would have needed to break our group up, and still wait for a while for seating. We left our names and decided to check elsewhere. We, or at least 4 out of the 6 of us, ended up at a place call Cos-cha. I enjoyed it on a sort of basic level as an experience in Akihabara, but I as foreigners, the maid/waitresses were a little intimidated. Add to that our complete inexperience with the whole thing, we ultimately were a little disappointed...until the show.

While all we did was sit and have some drinks and oggle a couple of the maids, some of the more experienced Otaku (note the capital "O", for they were very obviously uber-otakus, made up from parts of lesser otaku like myself) decided to partake of the pancake eating game. This attracted the attention of all the cafe. The rules were simple. One of the maids and the customer face off in a pancake eating contest. If the customer can eat 2 pancakes faster than the maid can eat one, then the customer wins and gets something (I missed what the actual prize was), and the other patrons of the cafe can get a picture with the losing maid, a priviledge normally paid for. However, if the maid wins, the customer is punished. Easy-peasy lemon-squeezy, right?

WRONG!

Admittedly, the guy tried hard. He lost by one or two bites, but when he got up, his cheeks were definitely channeling some chipmunk. The maid on the other hand, somehow managed to combine pancake-gorging with dainty elegance. Must be a maid secret power. By this time, we had recieved a call from the other cafe, and we were settling up. Most of us were looking back at the antics going on with the losing customer and the maid with sort of casual interest, mostly because there were making some noise. Suddenly, we were treated to perhaps the funniest sight of my Tokyo experience:

As punishment for losing the pancake game, the maid got to BITCH-SLAP the customer!!!

That got a rise out of the rest of the customers, as well as the gaijin about to leave. I don't know if there was some pent-up aggression behind that slap, but it was loud.

We headed around the corner to the other maid cafe, Mefle. By this time, Jon and crew had to jet, so it was up to Ian and I to troop on. Ian was a bit reluctant, but I was determined to try at least one more place. We made out way to the cafe, and were treated to a much more authentic experience. At the risk of sounding too lecherous, I enjoyed myself and have pics to prove it.

Afterwards, having completed that holiest of rituals, we started to explore Akihabara with renewed vigour. For me, that meant hitting up some of the local hobby stores. While I didn't find what I had come to look for, I ended up with some neat stuff to make my Marui M4 more "tacticool", while Ian managed to flesh out his soundtrack collection even more. As night fell, we headed back to the hotel.

It was not for sleep though, at least not yet. Tired as we were, the night was still young. So after a brief rest at the hotel, we searched out a local izakaya (bar). After 2 jumbo-sized beers, and some good izakaya-chow, we ended the night full and slightly sauced. I'll admit that the otaku in me was still ultimately unsatisfied with my foray in Akihabara, and the beer allowed me to voice my conviction to return there and buy something outstandly geeky, a souveneir par excellence of my time in otaku-Mecca. For now though, we called it a night relativly early, determined to get the most out of our last day...

Pictures Here.