Newspaper sales

So my doorbell rings, and a guy mumbles something incoherent over the intercom. Reluctantly i throw on some pants and see what he wants. A young guy greets me and bows profucely, newspaper salesman I realize. In the middle of our conversation he says, "You look like my brother."  I wanted to shout and is your brother a foreigner, instead I said, "Is that because he is bald?" Anyway it was a very interesting conversation, it seems he is new the city and he did have that "inaka" feel.  

Shortly after I left to go to my foot message appointment, and law and behold as I was walking to the station I passed him, I smiled and said, "Ganbatte!"

Video Steps

On my walking journey of Tokyo today I ran into these very unique steps.

Departures

So today I went to Asakusa to check out this Okinawa promotion fair. I didn't realize that it was in front of the TBS building, so I went in to see if there was anything interesting and they had this case of all the awards that "Departures" has won, except there was no Oscar, what's that all about?

Kodo Promotional Video

This is cool but the Longer version on the Kodo web site is even better.

'Twittering' at church

By DEBORAH FELDMAN / KING 5 News
SEATTLE - The Mars Hill Church in Seattle's Ballard neighborhood is not your grandma's church. On Sunday, the pastor's sermon was being broadcast on large video screens to accommodate his laryngitis and the congregants in church were broadcasting on their iPhones.

They weren’t talking, but “Twittering,” typing in brief thoughts or messages for their friends to read in real time.

"How does the service impact them, what does worship feel like to them and its a good way for them to kind of tell their friends what church is about without their friends even coming in the building,”

See the video here.

Things sure have changed. I guess it would be another good reason to get an iPhone!

The Past

I haven't had much to do at school so I have been scanning misc. pictures that have been buried in my closet. It has been actually pretty amusing to see how I have changed over the years and to remember some of the amusing adventures I have been on. They are all going up on my FB page, and if you're reading this you have probably already seen them.

This picture is of Takaragawa Onsen taken in 1987. I was really surprised how good the color has kept and the photo hasn't faded at all.

Yesterday

Yesterday was a weird but relaxing Sunday. First off I overslept, which is something that almost never happens. I woke up just at the time I should have been leaving the house for church. And since it is an hour and a half just to get there, there was no way that I was going to make it. So I ended up staying in all morning just relaxing reading and facebooking. I finally got around to getting out around 12:30 and headed to News Cafe in Jiyugaoka for lunch. It was there we talked about how America's don't know how to control their spending. And this morning I found the link to the video that I posted below.

Stopped to look at an apartment that was being advertised for sale at supposedly a great deal. Was highly disappointed knowing that the ceiling that through out the rest of the house was normal in the one bedroom and in a section of the hallway was probably about 5'5". And the new cabinets they had put it the hall way actually hung in the doorway. I have heard that it is a good time to buy an apartment, but there is no way that I could live in a situation like that.

After heading home I was tired, I have no idea why, and laid down for a nap and slept for 2 hours. Headed out to the bath and then it was about 9 before I got back and I hadn't had supper so I just opted for a piece of toast to hold me over till the morning. I guess it was the ice cream and chips that I ate in the afternoon that spoiled my appitite.

Don't Buy Stuff You Cannot Afford

After having a conversation about how some people just buy things that are way beyond their means I stumbled upon this, it is too funny.
http://danwho.net/mp/snl_dontbuystuff.wmv

Shige's Wedding

The happy couple.

Last night Shige finally tied the knot!  They had a small reception at a hotel in Nagatacho which was very nice and pretty informal.  It was really nice to see a lot of old friends and acquaintances.  Some of the people I had completely forgotten about.  When I walked into the hotel I was greeted almost immediately by a group of guys that were all involved in "Tomono Kai" in Yachiyo city.  The rest of the gang were all in a coffee shop having drinks waiting for the festivities to begin.  As we headed up to the banquet room we ran into Shige's parents.  His dad was so glad to see me and talked my ear off, saying how good a friend I had been to Shige and how I was really more like a brother.  It felt good.  

Things started off when Shige and Mizuho entered on the first floor and we were all standing above on the second floor. They walked around the foyer as we dropped flower petals on them. During the reception there were 4 speeches and I was the last one.  I don't know if that made me super special or something else.  We were all given name tags with our names of course and our relationship to the couple.  The funny thing was that all his friends from Yachiyo were from Tomono Kai and they all had "volunteer" on their name tags.  I think I was the only one of Shige's friends that had 親友, or best friend, on his name tag.  I did feel privileged.  The speech went well.  Any one interested in seeing pictures you can find them here. 

Did You Know?

Man our world is so changing.

Flying

Who wants to try this?

Homeowner Bailout

http://www.naturalnews.com/News_000737_homeowners_bailout_foreclosure.html">Obama Announces Plan to Tax Honest Homeowners Who Paid Their Mortgages

Welcome to America, where nobody is allowed to lose anymore: Not Wall Street bankers, not homeowners, and not even schoolchildren playing a game of kickball. "Everybody's a winner!"Except that everybody isn't a winner. The hard-working, honest Americans who pay their taxes and live within their means are now being forced to pay up and bail out all the scoundrels, bankers and over-spenders who put themselves in financial jeopardy and now expect everybody else to cover their losses.I remember a day when people behind on their house payments actually had to sell their homes and move into something smaller that they could afford. Such sensible decisions are apparently no longer tolerated in America's new economy.The lesson in all this? It is now becoming obvious that the only way to get ahead in America is to fall way behind. Fall behind on your mortgage payments and your neighbors pay it for you. Fall behind on your derivative investments and the Treasury bails you out. Fall behind on automobile manufacturing and the government subsidizes your complacency with repeated multi-billion-dollar bailouts.

This is some pretty powerful stuff. Sure there are alot of people who need help but is it the governments place to step in and bail everyone out? It is obvious that too many Americans live above their means, and I don't think that this measure is going to change peoples spending habits and really help them get on their feet and become really financially stable.

Economy Slump

This from the NY Times
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With Dubai’s economy in free fall, newspapers have reported that more than 3,000 cars sit abandoned in the parking lot at the Dubai Airport, left by fleeing, debt-ridden foreigners (who could in fact be imprisoned if they failed to pay their bills). Some are said to have maxed-out credit cards inside and notes of apology taped to the windshield.

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It must be some prison sentence if they can just run off and leave their car at the airport. But then again, it probably wasn't any of their money to begin with so maybe they could just run off. Or better yet why not just try driving out of the country.

How much would you pay for a strawberry?

People are getting laid off from the electronic industry and the automobile industry, and yesterday riding the train I noticed a number of business that have just closed up shop. In this downturn in the economy, on the news this morning I saw this news. Giant strawberries for over $500 a piece.
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Tokyo, Feb 12 (DPA) A Japanese farmer has succeeded in breeding giant strawberries with a price tag of up to 50,000 yen ($560) apiece, media reports said Thursday.

The newly harvested fruit measure about 8.5 cm in length and weigh more than 80 grams, compared to the standard strawberry that weighs about 28 gm.

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Quirky Japanese

Never know when something like this will jump out at you.  This is to tell people not to walk around with a lit cigarette, and for those of you not familiar with celsius the Fahrenheit equivalent would be 1,292 degrees. The sign next to it warned of not running onto the train because of the possibility of getting in the closing doors, noting that it was "dangerous and embarrassing". The scary thing is that probably more people would heed the warning because of the latter warning.

Happy Valentines Day

So in Japan they always do things a little different.  So on Valentines day it is the girls that hand out chocolate. Of course it is a big industry because the woman hand out to fellow employees as well as that special person in their life.  Well this year Valentine's day is on a Sat. and I think the chocolate makers realized with it being a day off there were not going to be as many people giving what they call "giri choco", obligation chocolate.  So one of the way to combat this was to introduce "gyaku choco", reverse chocolate.  Which is basically what they would say if a man gave chocolate on Valentines day, indicating they were doing things backwards.  Now to emphasize this they prepared some of this "gayku choco" with the packaging all printed in reverse.  What will they think of next. Found this good example on the shelves at my local convenience store.  Which I was going to but when I came home last night the shelves were all cleared.  I guess they realized people weren't going to actually buy anything on the actual day.

Fuji

Beautiful day for skiing〓〓

Asakusa

I took a quick trip into Asakusa to day to catch an antique show.  Well I wasn't that impressed with the antique show but Asakusa is always full of surprises. 
So if the bull on the roof of the Yakiniku restaurant isn't interesting enough, lets throw a Kabuki actor on the eves of some random shop.
And I don't know want this guy was all about, I didn't bother taking the time to read the sign, but he seemed to be getting his picture taken with a lot of foreigners.
And since the main attraction of the area is Sensoji Temple, you can always find something interesting like this.  He was just a stones throw from the McDonalds and I wanted too much to have the golden arches in the back ground.
After exploring the antique museum, and stopping of at Trunks-Ya, my favorite underwear store, I walked out of the store and almost right into Amol.  How interesting that in a city this size you can still just happen to run into someone you know.

Quirky Japanese

Exactly what do they want us to do @ home

For all the rest of the amusing ads go here.