The Weird... - Part 1

Whoa...it's been 2 and a half weeks since I last posted something! That's bad...and I apologize to those of you who have been asking me and wondering where the posts have gone to. To make amends, I'm hoping to post at least three things this week (maybe more). I present to you a 3-part posting entitled "The Weird...The Wacky...The Wonderful".

So much has happened since I last posted...let me count the ways...

 

The Weird

1) Ronald McDonald (Scary Japanese version)

• If you haven't read or seen my previous McDonald's posting with a video of a "beautiful" Ronald, go check it out here.
• I stumbled across this other video just today that's promoting McDonald's. I'm not sure if it's real, but it made me laugh.

2) UFO Catchers

• If you don't know what that is, it's basically one of those machines where you win a prize by using "THE CLAW".

Hello Kitty? Super Mario? Choose your destiny!

• UFO Catchers are EVERYWHERE! There are buildings and arcades with rooms FILLED with these things, selling anything from candy to stuffed toys to posters.
• In Akihabara (the electronic, nerdy part of Tokyo) I, along with another coworker, with a significant amount of money, and with the disgraceful pity of one of the employees (who made it easier and easier for us to win) won one of these each:

Super Sonico!

3) Sushi Stapler

• The picture speaks for itself:

...but where's the wasabi?

 4) Milk Soda

• FINALLY! Everyone's two favourite things: Milk AND Soda...TOGETHER AT LAST!
• I drank half of this because I was thirsty. The rest of the bottle is still sitting on my fridge.

5) Gang Fights?....no it couldn't be!

• I woke up around 8am early on Sunday morning to girls shrieking outside of my apartment and sounds of a street fight. I ran out of my building looking frantically for the sounds of the commotion, when I see something on the other side of the metro line:

•  I'll pretend the guy on the right is the "White Ranger" and the guy on the left is..."the bad guy with a scorpion face".
• Apparently they were filming some sort of movie outside my apartment, which included a group of actors dressed in school uniforms who provided the screaming that woke me up.

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Anyways, I hope you readers continue to enjoy the posts I put up. This was a short AND random one that I just threw together, but here is a preview of some other things I'm going to be posting very soon:

• Long weekend trip to Nikko (World Heritage Site)
• Sumo Wrestling
• Food!
• Baseball in Japan
• Fashions
• Typhoons

Shaking, Shopping, Shrines, and Seafood Sticks

No Longer an Earthquake Virgin

Today I felt my first earthquake here in Tokyo. I live right beside the train line, so I'm used to trains passing by on a regular basis. BUT, when my bed started to gently shake (with me in it) for about 5 seconds, I knew that was no train. It was actually kind of cool!

Asakusa

A few other teachers and I went to visit an area of Tokyo yesterday called Asakusa. This area is very famous for having a large Buddhist temple, built in the 7th century, called Sensoji. There is a very long street called Nakamise which leads up to the temple, that is filled with little food stalls and souvenir shops...where people used to buy all their pre-temple things back in the ancient times as well. Interestingly, the surrounding area has been all rebuilt due to the air raids of World War 2, when the area was a bustling entertainment area.

There are a lot of things to see in Tokyo, but even more so in this little area. If you like shopping for trinkets and snacks, this is the place to be...although it is a little bit more expensive due to it being a tourist area.

To VIEW ENTIRE GALLERY - CLICK HERE

Nakamise - Shopping area

Nakamise Lanterns

Japanese Wood Carver

To VIEW ENTIRE GALLERY - CLICK HERE

Good Fortune...Bad Fortune

Once you enter the temple area, you'll be in awe of the beautiful grandeur of the still existing architecture. Gigantic, red lanterns can be found in front of main gates and doorways. 

In order to get a fortune, you should cleanse yourself by bathing in some smoke, and then moving over to where the fortune sticks are. These sticks are inside of a metal tin, with a small hole just big enough for one stick to exit. After shaking and rolling the tin, you randomly select a wooden stick that comes out, with characters that correspond to those in drawers.

I received a "Regular Fortune", which isn't too shabby at all. A lucky coworker of mine received one that read "The Best Fortune". Yet another coworker of mine received one that read "Bad Fortune". He was not pleased. 

To VIEW ENTIRE GALLERY - CLICK HERE

Bathing in Smoke Before Entering Temple

My "Regular Fortune" Complete with Impeccable English Translation

Beautiful Sensoji Temple and Pagoda

Beautiful Underside of Giant Lantern

Sensoji Temple

Hozo Gate and Sonsoji Pagoda

Throwing in Coins for Good Luck

Sensoji Pagoda

To VIEW ENTIRE GALLERY - CLICK HERE

Octopus on a Stick? Yes please!

I haven't posted anything about food lately, which I should do more often. To quench your hunger for my hunger for exotic Japanese foods, I present to you these sticks of baby octopi. Grilled up and smothered in a sweet sauce...these things were tentacle-licking-good. Yummmmm... 

To VIEW ENTIRE GALLERY - CLICK HERE

Scrumptious stick foods

Baby Octopi on a Stick

Tentacle Lickin' Good!

Home Sweet (but small) Home

1000 people eaten (that means "views")?! WOW! 

School finally starts tomorrow. That means I gotta wear a tie. I usually only wear a tie 2 times a year, if that, back home...both times being for parent/teacher conferences. Now I have to wear a tie every day! I usually have to re-learn doing one each time, but thanks to the wonders of technology, YouTube has become my saviour...

A lot of people have been wondering what my apartment looks like, so I've finally gotten around to taking some photos and video of my apartment. I live 5 minutes away from Mejiro Station, which is 22 minutes away from the train stop where my school is. In between my apartment and the school are very famous Tokyo areas, such as: Shibuya (Shibuya crossing), Shinjuku (busiest station in the world), Harajuku (Yoyogi park and crazy fashions), etc.

20 Square Meters of Heaven

Fukujima House (white 3 story building on the left)

Japanese Pranks are AWESOME - Part 1

Canada's Just For Laughs Gags have NOTHING on the Japanese!

The Japanese always take pranks ABOVE and BEYOND what you'd expect. With that in mind and the fact that they find humour in embarrassing people publicly, please enjoy these, some of my favourite Japanese videos from YouTube. This will be the first installation of these, as I will post a few more in the coming months.

They may be brutal, but to me "BRUTAL is FUNNY".

Toilet Prank - Squatting toilets are funny by themselves. Throw in a countdown...and you have comedy genius.

Massage Chairs - This is my all-time favourite Japanese prank. What could be more relaxing than sitting in a massage chair while skiing in the mountains?

1 vs 100 - This ain't no game show with Bob Saget. Be careful when you're walking alone...

1 vs 100 Part 2 - Let's up the ante here and get even more ridiculous.


Onsen Fart - This one is new to me, but is hilarious nonetheless. Some men are a bit bashful when they see a women at the onsen (public bath) with them.

So Much Tokyo...So Little Weekend...

First Weekend in the Big City

     After meeting the entire staff on Friday, the school warmly welcomed us with completely paid for (as I mentioned last posting) ALL YOU CAN EAT and ALL YOU CAN DRINK party at Shannon's, which is an Irish themed pub nearby. Sorry for no photos of the grotesque amount of scrumptious food or the bevy of beverages, but I can assure you I got my money's worth

Shinjuku Station

Morning rush hour at Shinjuku Station

          On Saturday, a bunch of us teachers attempted to meet up at Shinjuku station to go to an Koenji station to watch this dance festival. When we learned quickly, being NEWBS, is that when you don't have cellphones yet, you should never meet up at Shinjuku station.

Why? ...because it's just the busiest station in the world.

How busy? ...about 3.64 million people go through it every day.

How is that possible? ...it has 12 train lines connecting to it, plus it's a hub for buses, and on top of all of that, it's surrounded by a busy commercial area.

Do I have any pictures or video to prove it? ...Yes...but I'll save that for another post. :D

Koenji Awa Odori

     In the end, we went to Koenji with a smaller group people since we couldn't find everyone. I wasn't sure what to expect going to this festival (odori meaning "dance") since it was labelled as "Fool's Dance" in English. It turned out to be fantastic! An ocean of people filled the streets, beautifully brightly coloured costumes, loud rhythmic drums, and cheap mouth-watering food stalls lining the roadsides...it was a wonderful festival atmosphere. 

Festival poster

      The dancers were of every age bracket and apparently there were 12000 of them. Every one of them was smiling and you could see how enthusiastic each one of them was by watching how passionate they were about the 3 hour long dance march (which they have to do again the next day).

     For those of you who like history, here's some info on the festival:

The awaodori ('awa dance') tradition can be traced back to Tokushima in Shikoku, where the story goes that the local daimyo plied his citizens with alcohol to celebrate the completion of the local castle in 1586, leading to a citywide outbreak of dancing in the streets. Whatever the accuracy of that story, the enthusiasm was contagious, and Koenji has been holding a dance of its own for over half a century.

   For those of you who hate history, here's some (9) pictures (click HERE to see the WHOLE album) and a video of what I filmed that day:

One more week till school officially starts...and fun ends...just kidding, fun NEVER ends.

Biru means Beer (ooh!)

First day of orientation at the school started yesterday. So all the new teachers got to meet all the other new teachers (21 new teachers in total). So many new teachers this year due to a lot of the other teachers having fears over last March's earthquake situation.

Some random facts about Canadian International School:

• 21 new teachers
• about 70 teachers in total
• Kindergarten to Grade 12
• 257 students

Un-school related... some new teachers and I went out exploring the last few days. This cartoon represents what basically happened:

I thought this comic was hilarious when I saw the original at one of my favourite gaming webcomics, Dueling Analogs. Here's the OG:

Here are a few photos of beers found by anonymous people here in Tokyo in the last few days.

This looks big...BUT...

THIS is a GRADUATED CYLINDER of more than a LITRE of BEER...

This fellow needs to use 2 hands...for shame...

On another side-note, I spotted this interesting pairing of hand soaps in a public washroom:

I chose the "non-flammable" one.

Today is Friday...so that can only mean it's "all you can eat AND all you can drink" day all paid for by the school. COMPAI! (cheers!)