Adventures in Japan

Wii Fit Says I'm Fat

Stupid jerk video game! Not that it's really a game. Not that it's not.

But that's not what I'm here to talk about. Today.

Nosir, I'm here to cram nearly a month's worth of happenstance into one haphazard post. Let's see if we can hit all the hallmarks. First, the apology for the lack of updates: sorry 'bout that.

Let's do this reverse chronological style!


Just last night Carla and I found ourselves in Kobe looking at the Luminarie. The Luminarie are Christmas lights. A lot of them. And people come to see them. A lot of them. Which is why we've never gone to see them before.


Carla, for those of you who may not know this about her, is not a people person. She is barely a person person. You put thousands of people into a smallish area, all of them trying to take pictures, all of them pushing, all of them with educated elbows, and you get an angry (nigh apoplectic [needlessly flowery phrasing:checkamundo!]) Carla.


But this is our last chance at seeing Luminarie, and Carla was in Kobe already (Shopping. She hates that too.) so we decided to give it a go. Oh yeah, it was raining. Japanese people would call it raining, Vancouver people not so much. The good thing about the rain was that I'm sure it thinned the crowd and it made everything all shiny and reflective. The bad thing about the rain is that everyone was carrying umbrellas and the pointy bits were right at our eye level.


The good far outweighed the bad. We had a fine time. A fine, slightly moist time. Moist and then muddy. The last part of the Luminarie was like a castle made of light. Surrounded by a moat of mud.

After that, we went looking for food. There was a burger place that we wanted to try. So we tried to try it. But it was closed. Then we looked around for somewhere to eat. We found a place, but it was to close in 15 minutes. I was beginning to feel a bit discouraged. But Carla never gave up hope. We found a place, an izakaya. A Kobe specific izakaya. It was tasty and beery and good.


Random tree picture GO!


Before the lights was The Go! Team. That was a week ago Wednesday. Here is where I rant for a bit. I've become a bit of a live music addict. I make it to at least a gig a month. I've found a lot of great (interesting at the very least) bands in this country.

(Large parenthetical aside in the middle of a largely parenthetical rant: I've also become addicted to Indie Canuck Music. Someone is going to go out gigging with me once we land back in the frozen North. It sure ain't gonna be Carla. See above re. Carla v. Humanity)

It's not the Japan bands that cause me distress. It's the bands from abroad. The Go! Team is awesome. Their music makes me so dang happy. Their live show in Osaka was on a Wednesday night. A Wednesday! What the heck is that happy horse pucky? And their set started at seven. A live show starting at 7?!? There was no opening act.

!?!?!?!?!!!

I work til 7:30 every day. I am the only English teacher at my school. I asked (pleaded) for time off and was rebuked. People suggested I call in sick. Ben suggested I crap my pants. I probably payed that more thought than I should have. But I can't leave my kids in the lurch like that. So I taught the hell out of them and then hauled ass into Namba to see what I could see. I got to Club Quatro just in time to hear them start Huddle Formation which is just one of my most favourite songs evar! I was ready to pay 60 bucks to get in, but the girl at the till pulled out their set list and showed me that there was only three songs to go. I put my money away. Sadly.

But I bought a shirt and a not available in stores CD. And I got the CD signed by the band. That was pretty cool. I told them that they should start later next time. They seemed sympathetic to my plight. A couple of the bands members hail from Japan, so maybe they'll be back. Probably the day after we leave for Canada. Jerks.

Seriously: seven pm on a Wednesday?

Keeping on the music scene, the last thing to blog about was an Asa Kusa Jinta gig. This gig was in Kyoto. At a University. Boy do I love University gigs. But Universities gigs here are way different than ones back home. They don't drink here. Once they're legal (21), they do, but not so much before. I remember like 10 free pizza and beer things within the first couple months of starting at the U of R. It was weird seeing all these college kids not being all Animal House-y. Odd.

In fact, we all (me, Paul, Jackie and Ben) got cracked at one point or another for carrying alcohol around on school grounds. This was an outdoor event. It was some kind of fund raiser thing. It was free to get in but every group, club and/or loose affiliation of students had a stall set up selling various foodstuffs. For some reason my brain switched over to Buffalo Days mode and I ate way too freakin much. It was unpleasant. And sometimes tasty. But who could refuse a bunch of giggly girls trying to entice with their broken English. Any time I acquiesced, I received applause, cheers and jumping up and down. Any time I spoke Japanese I received gasps of awe. I think word got round that there was an idiot white guy willing to cram anything into his mouth if you begged enough, cuz they sure got pushy near the end there.


Asa Kusa Jinta, as ever, rocked. They rocked with a w. They rocked so hard a mosh pit just appeared out of nowhere. That rarely happens here.

You may wonder why there are so few pictures of these gigs even though most of this post has been about them. Well, what with those deeply disturbing Draconian copyright laws being debated right now over there in CanadaLand, I'm not sure what's even legal anymore(hi dad!). Your money is worth more than theirs now, you don't always have to do what they ask.


One other thing, we had a second make your own pizza night. It was just as tasty as the first time. My sloppy joe pizza was not as successful as my potatoe salad pizza (so tasty! so deadly!) But it was better received than the crab brains pizza.


There. That was a pretty good post: pretty pictures, pointless purple prose, other words that start with p. Still... it is missing something. Well, I didn't work in any obscure and/or horribly dated pop culture references. And I didn't promise to try and post more in the future. To make up for the lack of those I give you these!