Where has Jason been? i've had the most stressful week of my life thusfar and looking forward i don't know what could top it. But first i have to post items from before this week. The Sayonara Japan tour began but never really had time to bloom because of a the most massive project i've ever worked on and ever will probably and an earthquake and nuclear crisis or two. Fumika's mom wanted to see me before I left Japan 2 weeks later so I had to oblige because they are my Japanese family in Japan. I didn't have any time for this visit because of this advertising project that is insanely laborious with a super tight deadline but i had to do it anyway and boy did I pay the price later. Me and fu-ballz went to Kyoto for one final time too.
My Japanese parents
my japanese family and a sushi chef. fu-ballz brother does construction and drinks a lot. even though he has to go to work at like 6 am he often drinks with his buddies at night.
this place that her parents wanted to take me for a long time was awesome. their specialty was putting a raw quail egg in different pieces. the salmon eggs and egg, uni and egg, and this sweet shrimp egg was amazing. It also ended up being like $100 per person, i feel bad, thanks for dinner Sugimotos!
her brother has never said more than 3 words to me but this night he was drinking and talking and wanted to hang out and drink more at home. so we drank random drinks and a bottle of shochu and this new drink, Calpis Makoli, makoli is korean rice wine and calpis is my fav japanese soft drink so the combo was good of course, but its only 3% alchohol
buses in japan are soooo nice. this one even has airbags!
in the crapper in kyoto early in the morning. this is literally so your kid can watch you do what he is doing in his diapers right now. maybe you can hold hands and if you're lucky, go in one glorious heartfelt father/offspring moment.
I am going to miss Japanese girls so much. the country is bursting with girls that look like street walkers and most of it is because of the extreme variety of stockings available. it goes way beyond fishnets to somewhere way beyond hooker to a land that guys love. single tear for no more of Japan's ultra stocking culture. we wont even get into socks and other things at this juncture.
Byodo In, Kyoto. its pretty south, past fushimi inari 1000 gates shrine. this temple is on the the 10 yen coin. I would only recommend this if you have exhausted all other Kyoto options because there are like 5 days worth of other must see stuff. I've been to kyoto 6 times so this was an option.
down at the shoe docks to go see the old buddah inside the middle building.
this art is cool. but its 10,000 yen
glimpse at the tech ticket gates. about a billion parts and 5 million rotating things.
streets of gion one last time. what a place.
i dont know what this is but the art looks awesome.
fu balls had these cool tights that had digi pixel roses on them.
i've walked by this shrine so many times but never went in. Its called Yakasa Kyoshin Do and its near the pagoda. the thing here is these hanging guys. I always thought they were people in pajamas but they are monkeys with their hand and feet bound. In Kōshin belief, it represents the control of the playful and desire-driven creature everyone has inside his body. To have a wish granted, you must sacrifice one desire and put it inside one of the monkeys. so the monkey is tied up and your desire can't get out. I wanted to get one of these for bob but didnt have time. these things represent Bob so much don't they??!!, denying yourself pleasures and being a good monkey. im kicking myself so hard right now for not just buying an overpriced one at the temple, its perfect light hearted reminder that bob can put on his desk.
high tech toilet, engrish sign.
one last amazing dinner by fumika's mom. she made my favorite, shisho cheese chicken katsu, oden, some kind of dark miso soup, fresh veggies, and more. Thanks to fumika and her family for being so kind to this dirty hobo. Thanks for taking me to the mountains, the beach, the tanuki town, the half marathon, and more. Thanks for showing me a real Japanese family, and bob says thank you for that too. I will miss this part of Japan! Up next, earthquake fun.
Mie one last time
Last House Party
I got a new wide angle lens. Its a 20-35mm f/2.8 L series lens used for $560. I never really wanted to buy an L lens but it was the only one that fit the specs i wanted and it is pretty damn nice. my 35mm f/2.0 prime lens is next to it for comparison. I don't know how i feel about the new lens yet because its so heavy, longer and bigger and for pros which i am not. maybe ill return it i dont know. and i am seriously battling with myself over wether i should buy the Canon 5D mark II camera that is $1,800 used and 100x better than mine. My reasoning is there is no other time in my life i will need it more because i am living abroad and travelling and it has HD video, full frame, and superior low light sensitivity. but its for semi-pros/pros/people who need super HD video and is $1,800. it tortures me nightly.
I got this Nikon Coolpix S5100 pocket camera new for $120 because my other pocket cam is super unacceptable. this one is 12MP with HD video and no options and like 3 buttons. it feels like a fischer price camera. the pic quality is not that great but thats what you get for a $120 camera and all pocket cams suck anyway.
this is the DVD that the old guys at the museum of emerging technology gave us. I have no idea what it's about.
here is a screen shot from about 2 minutes in of a guy hugging a try and thanking it several times.
I made Maikur steal this from Mos burger. its a rubber coaster. i made her steal it because she is white and doesn't have a visa in order to get kicked out of the country.
Fumiko got me this little old school post office piggy bank that i wanted but they arent for sale. She said she doesnt want to talk about how she got it but she got it somehow.
This mikan au lait drink was pretty good. mikans are like tangerines.
is there only 1 other apartment of people living in our building now? they are moving out next door and here is some of their stuff shot from my window.
more moving out
Tried this kujira (whale) restaurant next to the 109 shibuya building. here is whale sashimi. was interesting and not so bad.
Here is whale steak, it was pretty good cuz it was seasoned well. I would eat this again if it were lying around and all politics and morals were aside.
awesome ukiyo-e whale art
a shot from our last house party before this place gets destroyed. there were maybe 14-15 people jammed into this little apartment.
one day we checked and the rooftop was magically unlocked. i love rooftops and miss our rooftop in harlem and 52nd street.
Mikur in Tokyo
Me and Akari's friend Mikur from New York came to Japan on part of her whirlwind Asia tour (her real name is Micaela but Mikur is the bootleg Engrish name a made for her)
Mikur and Akari
we went to a micro bar in shibuya at 2 in the morning and there was this guy there with his cat Mirin (mirin is used for cooking) and the bar tender was a cute young girl. this is noteable because the bartenders are usually old grandmas. the girl ended up speaking english because she had some weird story and was partially raised in Oneonta, New York near Albany. how random.
chef at sushi place in meguro blasting something with a propane torch.
view from the 8th floor or so of Honjin Okonomiyaki in Shinjuku, Kabuki cho. decent place and nice view.
girls at Hachiko. show me a guy that doesn't love those socks.
SKE48 is the 48 girl group from Nagoya. (remember AKB48 from Akihabara in tokyo?) I think they are sister groups. the main member of SKE48 was 12 yrs old when she started and they all wear a lot less than what they are on this truck side. what the hell.
that cool shrine in Inokashira park again on the way to the ghibli museum.
have you ever been walking along and had the craving to buy just one strawberry for $2.43? Well its your lucky day because in some places you can! This is for seriously here.
What are these girls thinking? 2 sets of "twins". Don't their parents ask what's in those pink suitcases before they leave their suburban homes to ride for 1.5 hrs on the train to tokyo in order to prance around for an afternoon like that?
learned a new word, mogura (mole). but i'm talking about star-nosed moles that have fingers on their nose vivi, let me show you.
Here is the bst picture of vivi that you're ever gonna get.
next to tsukiji
Hamarikyu Garden with what looks like rapeseed flowers. to get to the suido waterbus landing stop located at the back of the park you have to buy a ticket for the garden to get through. jerks. makin you pay 300 yen to see beautiful sh!t on your way to the boat.
the Asahi golden fart from directly below.
we walked to the tokyo skytree. the new tallest building in japan and supposedly the tallest in the world but i looked online and it says it will be the tallest "tower" in the world and the 2nd largest "structure" in the world after some thing in Dubai.
These were actually pretty damn hot. i bought these in tsukiji because i knew we were gonna need a wake up remedy later. They are hot because they are not from Japan. they are made in New Jersey. Even the hottest things in Japan are just like your grandma pinching your cheek or something.
We went to the Miraikan aka the Museum of Emerging Technology on Odaiba island. It is a pretty cool place and i recommend it. These guys were giving out help desk information and well as shooting the breeze and giving us sh@tty dvds. i will post a picture of it next time and a screen cap of this guy hugging trees. these guys had volunteer written on their back, there were tons of volunteers everywhere, they were all old mostly men. they were all super knowledgeable in their area of the museum, are they retired professors or something? why is Japan such an awesome Utopia?
The very first thing we saw when we got upstairs was a bunch of people sitting around waiting for Asimo, a fully moveable robot made by honda. He came out like 30 seconds later so we had perfect timing. watching him walk and run is FREAKY. check out the video, i found it on youtube since i can't take video with my camera.
walking action starts at about :38 seconds in but you can see it kick a ball before that.
he's as tall as a child. imagine if it went crazy and all the gyroscopic independent motor action rotations were punching all the school kids sitting on the floor in the face? or my nuts? it would be awesome.
Which country do you want to live in map. green=nature, red=culture, yellow=politics/society. looks like everyone wants to live in europe and Japan, no one wants to live in the US, and one family of 6 from Gabon, Africa wants to live in Gabon.
This is the most amazing thing i have seen in about 10 years. Check out the video, it was done 3 years ago. now they are using black fluid and lighting it with LED lights so it looks even more amazing and like fiber optics. the tower holds ferrofluid and they strengthen or weaken the magnetic force around it so they can time its actions to music. crazy
no special effects this is real!
they had a japanese space program section. yes japanese astronaunts get space strawberry shortcake just like you and me but they also get freeze dried space takoyaki instead (octopus batter balls).
see you someday Mikur.
