When I applied to be an exchange student to Japan, I told the people interviewing me that I wanted to "experience a different culture" and learn Japanese and all that. That was all a lie. What I really wanted was easily accessable delicious candy. Uh as you can see it's not really candy at all, it's really more of an ice cream. However, it's also my favorite sweet over here so it gets first mention. Maccha is basically green tea ice cream, except it's kinda icy, like if they froze creamy green tea and just crushed it up a whole bunch. This one pictured above is weird because you don't really eat it like ice cream at all, but suck it through a straw. It's probably the best thing to buy when you're walking outside on a hot day. They also got Ghana here. I was expecting something WACKY and CRAZY from fun-loving Ghana, but it's actually just milk chocolate. Pretty good though. Crunky. Old favorite. Best part? You know they were going for "Crunchy" and just ended up with this name, but they've made no attempt to fix their mistake, even though the description of the candy spells "crunchy" out perfectly. LOOK will you please LOOOOOOOK I DEMAND ATTENTION. I really didn't have high expectations for this stuff, I just bought it because I want to try all the candy in Japan and because the name was so obnoxiously stupid. Also notice that it says it is "A La Mode". Don't be fooled. There is no ice cream. It LOOKs kinda cool though. and it TASTEs pretty bad. The only passable flavor out of the four (pineapple, strawberry, caramel, banana) is the caramel, and that's really not anything exciting. BUT THERE'S MORE! Still with the A La Mode, but no ice cream to be found. I probably should have avoided getting this after having the normal LOOK but uh, there was a maccha flavor and I couldn't say no. It actually isn't that bad, except for the strawberry. The other flavors are kurogoma (black sesame) and chocolate. Oh man choco flake. Choco flake is so good, you don't even know. That is how good it is. It's pretty much what every chocolate flavored cereal tries but ultimately fails to be. This is because they are only chocolate flavored. Choco flake totally changes the game and just covers corn flakes in chocolate, which kinda sounds grody at first (chocolate and corn) but really it's just like cereal, only a million times better. It's great frozen too. I have yet to try it with milk, but believe me, I will have tried it before this year is over. I thought this stuff looked pretty rad. Chocolate balls in an IMPENETRABLE metal bottle? Yes please! Unfortunately, this was because I assumed that the chocolate balls would have something interesting about them, and had to be encased in metal because it was too rad for plastic or cardboard packaging. Turns out they're just chocolate balls. This was the biggest disappointment. I could fix the picture on this but it let me down so hard that I ain't doing nothing for it anymore. Just to clear up possible misunderstandings about this, I love dark chocolate. I used to think "the higher the percentage, the better!" But that was before I tried this absolutely disgusting bar of poison. I tried two squares of the stuff and I barely made it through the second square without dying of dehydration. If posed with the choice of either eating an entire bar of this stuff without milk or never feeling joy again in my entire life, I would be hard-pressed to make a decision. THERE WILL BE MORE CANDY
And Japan delivers!
There is a ton of good candy here
A TON.
(I MODDED my blog. Click the link like it says to open up shop)
Let's start with Maccha.
Friday, September 28, 2007
CandyBlog I
Thursday, September 27, 2007
I am going to tell you about Chromeo
Let me tell you about Chromeo. They are probably one of the best bands around, for real, for real. Their stuff is hilarious and amazing at the same time. Not "hilariously awesome" or "awesomely hilarious" but just hilarious and awesome simultaneously. And let me tell you as a person who is also simultaneously the best person ever and also possibly the funniest thing to walk the Earth, that it is no easy task being these two things at once. Not for me though. I'm just gifted.
Let me tell you about Pase Rock. He is most definitely one of the best rappers around right now. Super tight lyrics, super smooth flow, and super rad fashion. Plus the fact that he brings Amanda Blank around helps too.
Now let me tell you about Bonafide Lovin'. This is my favorite song from the new Chromeo album. Sure, Tenderoni and Fancy Footwork are great songs, but there's just something about Bonafide Lovin' that just can't be beat.
Where does this all lead?
To a very predictable end
Chromeo - Bonafide Lovin' (Eli remix ft. Pase Rock) via Pinglewood
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Let me tell you about my mad skillz
When it comes to sense of direction, I've got a pretty damn good one. You could put me in a maze the size of Manhattan with blindfolds on and I'd meet you at the exit half an hour later all "sup dudes, wanna snag a burg'?" YEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSS Goatse
However this amazing superpower of mine (seriously, it's that good) failed me today when I went out to the camera store to buy a tripod. Instead of going with the path I knew pretty well, I decided to go a different direction so that I could take pictures of some new stuff. It seemed like a pretty good idea at first; I was just crossing a different bridge than I usually do, and going this way would just take me to my bus route which I could follow to the store. It would have stayed a good idea if I had just followed my original plan, but I decided to create my own shortcut to see if I could get there quicker. WHAT A RAD PLAN, RIGHT? Yeah it was rad. All my plans are rad. Especially Master Plans.
But unfortunately I must have run out of rad points or used up my special meter or something because after probably half an hour, I was walking down a road I was sure I had never seen, and seeing signs for Nagasaki, which is a good half-hour away by car. I knew it was stupid to think that I was in Nagasaki at the time, but I was all "oh dang oh dang what if I'm in Nagasaki. Man I ain't even got a cell to call my host fam." It was even dumber to think this seeing as signs for Nagasaki are fucking everywhere in my town; tons are near my school, and even more on my bus route.
After another hour and a half of walking over train tracks, over bridges, under bridges and through parking lots, I finally made it to my destination. And of course once I get in, the tripod I was thinking of getting wouldn't work for my camera, and I didn't want to buy any others without looking around online. So pretty much I walked around for two hours until it was too dark to take photos, didn't get anything from the store I was walking to.
I went back home the way I knew how, and it ended up taking about a half-hour or so. Pretty much I completely failed today at doing anything. While walking back, I thought "at least there ain't anybody around to chastise me for being out late on my own" (plus my school's got a rule about being out past 8; you can't be out past 8) and then a second later "Oh, hey Mr. Tysen" -Oh, hey Jeremy (checks watch). What are you doing out so late?- SWEET JUST WHAT I WANTED. Mr. Tysen is the only American at the school other than me. He's an English teacher who also acts as a translator for me at times. Perfect dude to meet out on the street!
Saturday, September 22, 2007
GOLLY GOSH I'm just on a posting SPREE, aren't I?
Today while Cmills and Hrod were off rocking out to Armani XXXChange, Pase Rock and Amanda Blank, JLaw was biking to school (on a Saturday) to go to kendo practice even though school didn't have class. Rad right? Yeah dude, that's turbo. A place called "Lipstick" right next to a place called "Grandpa" with tinted windows. Nothing is odd here. NOTHING. This is the city's shopping center downtown. They close the roads that pass through it from 10-7, which is what the sign up front is all about. That ad on the left there is for a Pachinko casino. Pachinko is ridiculously popular over here. They even have TV shows on how to win it, which I think is pretty dumb. "Pizza Dream's? I dunno man, it looks kinda like a Domino's ripoff to me..." -No worries, man. This dude said it's the real deal.- "Oh, in that case, alright. He looks like a man I can really trust and I feel that I can relate to him."
Afterwards, I went out to take some photos, but it was too dark to get anything that actually looked any good. I'm gonna go out again tomorrow and see what magic I can work. Probably not very good magic. Most likely very low-grade "oh hey here's that bakery I was talking about" magic.
After getting back, I went out with my host father and older host brother (still younger than me though, he's 17 and his little brother is 9 or 10) for やきとり(grilled chicken, but they do more than just chicken). Most of the stuff was pretty good, but some of it was just weird. Like the pig's knuckles. I don't think I'll be jumping at the next chance to have those. I had some chicken liver that tasted alright at first, but then the texture hit me; it feels like eating a really soft, chalky pastel. Like the ones you use with the smudgy things in art class.
My host father ordered pig's feet for me to try, even though I protested. He kept saying "Challenge! Challenge!" which kind of reminded me of Street Fighter, only with weird food. It was actually pretty good though, but hard to eat. It was really fatty, which was delicious, but there were probably 20 bones in the entire thing. I heard some thing where a third of the bones in your body are in your feet, or maybe it was thirty bones, but either way there are far too many. It seems that pigs are like this as well. This proved to be a bit of a problem because although I know you're just supposed to throw urrything in your mouth and spit the bones out afters, I hate doing that with anything. I hate eating watermelons and spitting out seeds. I hate eating a plum and spitting out the pit. I never eat sunflower seeds the way you're "supposed to." The way I see it, doing that is like having a mini-vom-bomb minus the stomach acids.
Here are some pictures:
Just so you know
http://unitedcats.wordpress.com/2007/05/29/major-biological-discoveryinside-the-chernobyl-reactor/
THE SLIME
IT WILL EAT US ALL
also I kina really want to go into Pripyat
wear a long leather cloak
call myself a STALKER
die of radio-ation poisoning
Also
I used to think that anime was absolutely ridiculous because they would make super hardcore shows about tennis players or baseball pitcher, but really, that's not so bad.
At least, it isn't once you see a commercial for a super hardcore show about a bakery.
Which I just did.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Let me tell you about sugared donuts
Let me tell you about my bus stop. It is someone's driveway.
Not even the driveway, though, just the part where the sidewalk has to dip down to meet the road. It's kinda lame, and kind of annoying seeing as there's a for real bus stop maybe thirty feet away. But uh, I don't really wanna shift over and then have my Elvis-loving bus driver get all weird with me (not that he isn't already. Did I mention that he invited me out to lunch a little while ago? Because he did. It was creepy).
However, right across the street are two primo-supremo city sites that I am a big fan of. The first is A COOP, a small market. I go in there after school each day to get an apple, because apples are delicious. As soon as you go in, there's really cheesy midi music playing in the background, and periodically a recording of a man yelling "CHEAP! CHEEEEEAP! IT'S SO GODDAMN CHEAP DAMNIT, BUY SOMETHING!" Or at least that's all that I can understand of what he's saying. As rad as the music and yelling is, I usually just go in and out for my apple.
Right next door is a bakery that I finally went into this morning. I had been planning on going for a while, but for some reason I never decided to. It's a small bakery called "Languedoc", but while the sign up top says that, the text on the window says "Rangue Doc." It's a pretty impressive display of engrish. I'll get a picture of it soon. Anyway, this bakery has a bunch of really typical Japanese-western weirdo blend bread-things that most Japanese bakeries have. Mostly they're hot dog roll-y things with noodles or sausage or cheese or mayo or a weird combination of those things. Sometimes they look and sound really weird and kind of off-putting, but they're always delicious.
However, the most important thing about this bakery is that it has sugared donuts.
Sugared donuts
are
the
best.
I don't know why, but I haven't seen them anywhere in the US. I'm sure it's probably in my face all the time, but I never see them anyway. Urrybody has glazed stuff and frosted. All I want is some granulated sugar on my nut. That's all it is. But it is the most delicious donut ever (apart from tres leches, but I don't really even consider that a donut, it's like a mini-cake). The last time I had a sugared donut was back in the summer after freshman year when I went to Hong Kong, and now I can have them every morning until I get so fat that I can no longer walk to the bakery. But that'd be fine. I figure by that time, I would have gotten to know the people at the bakery well enough that they would set up some sort of delivery service for me. If not, I'll just send my little host brother out to get me a case of donuts each morning.
But seriously, I don't know if you guys really understand how happy I am that this place has sugared donuts. I got really excited after finding out, and I had to calm myself down so that I wouldn't weird out the bus people when I got on. And I made this post pretty much just so that I could tell you about the donut. Apples are alright and all that, but this donut, it is too good.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
I got the chance to go see a Japanese team play today, which was pretty rad. What was radder was that the two teams were the first and second in the league. The local team was the Fukuoka Soft Bank Hawks, and the visiting team was the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters. What's with the weird names? Sponsers (or owners, rather) Soft Bank is a cell phone carrier, and Nippon Ham makes ham.
I learned a new trick on my camera!
The stadium was called the Yahoo! Dome. It wasn't really all that big and couldn't hold a huge amount of people, but it was still super loud in there, mainly because when it comes to cheering, the Japanese are redonk. The entire section opposite home base was filled with fans dressed in jerseys, holding signs and these weird noisemaker/bullhorn contraptions. Everyone in this section was standing for pretty much the entire first seven innings, and cheering almost constantly. I guess each team has a cheer section or something, because both the home team and the away team had people with drums, trumpets and tons of other stuff that were used in their fight songs.
See that Asahi Beer ad?
If someone hits a home run into it, they get free beer for ten years
TEN
Also, they don't have a seventh inning stretch in Japan. As far as I know, the just do this:
Thousands of balloons! (also one guy that sucks)
And then after the game is over, they have fireworks. Indoors. And confetti.
Pretty much the jist of this is that Japan wins.
Saturday, September 15, 2007
This is very important
http://www.koreus.com/video/baseball-cloche-pied.html
Please explain what is happening
seriously, I want to know
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Japanese TeeVee is still really odd
I just watched a show where four guys dressed up in bug uniforms tried to do a backflip on a bar. The bar started off being a meter high, and then with each successful flip, was lowered a couple of centimeters. It eventually got down to 25 cm and one of the guys actually managed to flip through it somehow. Whenever someone couldn't, though, a really weird lady in a bee costume would come out, eat something gross (like fermented soybeans or garlic), and breathe into the guy's nose through a tube while someone else held him down and covered his mouth.
Also, I tried fermented soybeans yesterday. They call it なっと(natto) over here, and I'm pretty sure you'll never find anything in western cuisine that will ever be more disgusting than this. This stuff makes the idea of eating cockroaches (thanks France!) seem brilliant. I seriously don't understand how anyone came up with this idea. The stuff looks like spider eggs with cobwebs still attached. I just don't see how someone would have come up with these things. Either someone just found some soybeans which had fermented and thought "Yes, I will eat those", which is a pretty disgusting thing to do. Or, someone actually thought up the idea of leaving soybeans alone until they had started leaking an extremely offensive substance, then pour some sauce on it and eat it up. I don't really know which is worse.
Pictures for those who really want them (you don't)
Normal and fermented soybeans for comparison
YUM See how the cobweb stuff sort of covers to the chopsticks? Yeah, I had to switch sticks after that to avoid puking because it was still on there and it got over all my other food.
Saturday, September 8, 2007
Tuna is a fish
I always thought that tuna just existed as meat in cans, and that STARkist (not sun) would just come by, slap a label on it and send it to the grocery store. How dolphins figured into that I never really figured out. Turns out that they're really just GIGANTIC FISH. I was really hesistant to try it, mainly because I am a processed-food kind of guy (wonder bread, american cheese and hot pockets plz. Veggies and vitamins ain't really my bag) and also because the guy who gave me a bunch of stuff mentioned "gelatin" and "collagen", both of which I plan on never consuming, while dropping the meat in my bowl. Also some dude was eating the fish's pupil which really turned me off. However, despite the strange fats and optical humors, I did try the fish and it was delicious. Kind of tasted like a hamburger, which was weird, but a delicious hamburger. The sashimi was pretty damn good though. They had many different types of cuts because we ate from the entire fish. Different parts of the fish have more fat than others, and those cuts are much more expensive and sought-after because they supposedly taste better. I don't really fully agree with that. DA CHEEP(er) stuff. As you can see, this meat is redder, meaning there's less fat breaking it up. I really prefer this stuff even though it's considered less-desirable in Japan. Despite the weird fish-eyeball stuff and the super fatty sashimi, the food was really good. Really expensive though. I was told that the fish itself cost about $1000 USD, but I'm sure it was more. Plus, the hosts hired professional chefs to set up, cut the fish and prepare the food, so they paid even more for that. However, the Rotary Club hosted the event, so I'm sure it wasn't a problem for them. There were probably 50-60 people there (Rotary members and their families), but the fish was big enough that they were able to feed everyone and also give each family stuff to bring back home as well.
lol take pix
They didn't cook the fish at all, we just had sashimi. Or at least, they didn't cook the body. They did, however, cut off the head, split it in two and "baked" it in the most jerry-rigged oven setup I've ever seen.
MMmmmm...appetizing. How was it cooked again? Baked? Oh, what did they use to cover it?
Oh cool, that's very reassuring. 
This small portion of tuna would set you back around $100 USD. The reason why it's so expensive is because it has so much fat. Everyone else seemed to love it, but I could barely finish one piece. After maybe five chews, you were pretty much just chewing fat, and I had to force myself to swallow it to avoid spitting it out and offending the people who were hosting me.
Sports!
Guess what's rad!: I learned how to say "migraine" in Japanese today!
Guess what isn't!: I had one today.
It might have happened because it was so damn hot today (a bunch of people got heat stroke), or it might just have happened because I get them every once in a while. The worst thing is, I see it coming (literally, my vision blurs) and I can't do jack about it, except find the excedrin for when it hits.
Anyway, the reason the heat was so bad today was because it was the Chinzei Gakuin High School Sports Festival today. They had a bunch of events, but all I did was the Tug-of-War. It was tons of fun and my team won. I was pretty damn sure we'd lose to this one team because they had a mountain of a man as their anchor. Seriously a mountain. It's even in his name. However, we emerged victorious and I'm pretty sure it's all due to the fact that I am a beast.
I also marched with the rest of the Kendo team. Some dude on the soccer team saw me and was all "OOOOH AMERICA SAMURAI". The soccer team was super enthusiastic and really into the whole marching thing, chanting the Japanese equivalent of "left, right, left". The kendo team, however, was a bit more relaxed. We didn't even really walk in time or anything, and just sort of went around the track. Somehow I always seem to pick the sport or team with the absolute least amount of spirit.
Uh so I forgot to post this yesterday but I don't wanna go back and change all the day references to make it correct, so just understand that this all took place yesterday.
Also, other than the sports festival and headache, I got a HUGE bag of Choco Flakes. SO GOOD. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Choco Flakes, it's pretty much just normal corn flakes covered in a thin layer of chocolate. Sounds like it should be gross (chocolate corn?) but it's delicious. And plus, all those chocolate cereals you eat are probably made from corn anyway, so it's not much different from stuff you've already had.
Friday, September 7, 2007
HOT PIXX
First and foremost, check out the Sartorialist's blog
LOOK LOOK LOOK AT THE THIRD PIC
WHAT A CHIC CHICK
GO GO GO
http://www.thesartorialist.blogspot.com/
http://www.thesartorialist.blogspot.com/
http://www.thesartorialist.blogspot.com/
http://www.thesartorialist.blogspot.com/
http://www.thesartorialist.blogspot.com/
Today we got off early from school because we have the sports festival to rest up for tomorrow, so I took the early bus home and went around taking some pictures.
MAH HAUS
Japanese driveways are small. Very small.
I don't know why, but I find this super rad-looking. The reason why there are so many wires is because the houses are so damn close together.
This looks like it should be a one-way street, but no, it's two-way in Japan.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Spinna fo a face
This attacked me when I was going to bed one night. It made a big THUD when I knocked it to the ground. I hate bugs.
ALSO. Kendo is rad. It really tires the forearms though. School is super long over here. I get a bus at 7:20ish, and school does to 4:00. The first bus leaves at around 4:20, but I stay for Kendo which starts at 4:30. The last bus leaves at 7:00 PM and I jump on that to get home at around 7:30. TWELVE HOURS. TWELVE. Classes are kind of a bore sometimes, but I spend a lot of time in the library during the classes where the Japanese would be too much for me to understand. This'll only last until October anyway, when I start taking Japanese at Nagasaki Wesleyan University. Once that happens, I'll probably only have class at Chinzei (the high school) on Saturdays.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
NEWS FLASH: School is still School
I don't really know what I was thinking when I decided to go abroad as an exchange student. Maybe I was thinking that school in other countries would just be people doing backflips and giving each other high-fives. Maybe I thought that I would enter the front door on the first day and a rad dude would surf by me screaming "Cowabunga!" and a massive beach party would start, and would continue until the day I left.
Well no matter what I thought, school in Japan is totally not what I thought it would be. School in Japan is just school, but in Japan. The sports afterwards are pretty rad though. I started up Kendo today, which was fun. I didn't really know what to do for the first day, so I got an english teacher (the same one who's been my guide) to help me talk to the Kendo teacher. I got all sorted out with the teacher and went to watch the practice to see what everything was like, but I ended up actually trying some of the exercises out. It was pretty fun, but I have to wait until later to actually put the armor on and participate in the actual sport.
There's also a sports festival coming up this weekend, and the school is preparing for it everyday after lunch. Instead of having classes as they normally do, everyone changes into the active wear uniform (yeah, they're big on uniforms here) and heads outside to get ready for the festival. Usually a bunch of people come up to me during that time to introduce themselves, or to see if I remember their names (I never do, I should probably work on that).
Monday, September 3, 2007
Bax 2 Skool
Do you know what Japanese people love? American people! Even more than that? New York! Every time I told someone I lived in New York they went wild. But then when I told them that I lived there for about four days and that I really lived in Connecticut for far longer, the response was usually, "Eh.....NEW YORKU!" My guess is that they only really know about New York and California and possibly not messing with Texas.
The school I'm going to isn't bad, but I'm told it's kind of a sporty school, which is good in some ways and bad in others. It's good because that means they'll go easy on my academically which is really good because I still have no idea what's going on language-wise. However, it's also bad because I'm about as sporty as a dead slug. It's also a very Christian school. Everyone goes to chapel in the morning and has a bible and hymn book with them (in japanese) and listens to a sermon given by the head teacher (in japanese). This is where I zone out.
My homeroom teacher happens to be an English teacher, which is good because otherwise I would be lost half of the day. There's also an American English teacher here who's been a guide of sorts for me, and he's helped out a whole lot. He's going to bring me into some of his upper level English Conversation classes to have the class practice their English on me. However, I don't really expect too many questions seeing as almost all the kids I've talked to (or rather tried to talk to) are too shy to speak English. Everyone is really afraid to say something incorrectly, and they totally freeze up when faced with an English question. Of course I've been trying to talk in Japanese as well, but the students I talked to were in the English-Speaking Society club and they still refused to speak.
Though there are some students who are quite different. Today we had a big meeting in the gym to decide who will do what games at the sports festival (I signed up for the tug-of-war, thumbs up) and I got called over by several groups many times to talk to them. Most of the time there was one person who spoke some English and their friends would ask questions through them. There was also one guy who called me over to his friends, pointed to some dude he called "champion" and had me arm wrestle him. I lost.
Also for some reason I get along really well with bus drivers all the time. I dunno why. This bus driver is no different. We had a converstation (kind of, mostly just trying to get each other to understand what we were saying) where I learned that New York is full of pretty women (like the song!), LA exists and that his hobby is Elvis. Also, for some reason I'm pretty sure everyone in the world knows how to say "hello" in Chinese. EVERYONE. On the bus all the dudes around me knew how to say it. Of course when I asked if they knew anything else, nobody did. Just hello.
Anyway, I'll put up pictures later. I just moved into my new host family's house last friday and I haven't had time to hook up my camera to the computer. However, I'll leave you with this gem. It's not mine, but I think you'll agree that it is simply amazing.
http://www.ebiztutors.com/images/paul/00a.jpg
