Oscars

People that know me, know that I have always been a big movie fan, so I always enjoy to watch the Oscars every year.

Tonight I got around to finally watching the end of the Oscars from this year. It wasn't the best one this year, though. I wasn't sure I would like Ellen as host, but she actually was mildly funny- I guess I just don't like when she does that dancing bit on her talk show. Last year I thought was much funnier with the always funny John Stewart hosting.

A couple of natural funny laughs in the show. I had the biggest chuckle near the end of the show when Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Speilberg and George Lucas came out to present the Best Director award. They started talking about how great it feels to win the Oscar when Lucas reminded the other two that he has never won anything. It was a good laugh- of course I am sure Lucas' confidence is safe- he is pretty much a billionaire between the money made from Star Wars, THX and ILM.

Another funny moment when Robert Downey Jr, who is well known for having a drug problem in the 90's was introducing the special effects award and said “Visual effects: they enable us to see aliens, experience other universes, move in slow motion, or watch spiders climbing high above the city landscape. For me, just a typical weeknight in the mid-’90s.” (thanks to MSNBC website for the quick copy and paste here).

Ritsy and I watched American Idol a few years back when Jennifer Hudson was a contestant. We really felt that she was a pretty good singer and got a bad rap from Simon and the other guy (oops can't remember his name). It's amazing to see her win first the Golden Globe and then the Oscar this year, she was all class too- she never once called out Simon for his rude comments. To be honest though, when they performed she was seriously out-performed by Beyonce- and you know I don't like that type of music so that says a lot.

Final thought from the show was Peter O'Toole. He is about 75 years old now- but he has had an incredibly long and amazing career- most memorable for Lawrence of Arabia. Well he was nominated for the 8th time and was passed over again, the poor guy was shown on camera and you could see he was totally nervous before they read the name and it took a moment for him to realize that it wasn't his name they called. I hope Forest Whitaker's performance was something special- I would have been okay with a sentimental nod in that category.

It was good to see the Departed win the big award too- Scorsese has made so many memorable moves, this one will stand up with the others.

Hanging Out

I fell like today was mostly wasted hanging out in the quiet of my home for most of the day, but some things got done and in the end it was a pretty mild paced day off, perfect for relaxing.

We had to wait for two deliveries today, one came in the morning- we had AC installed in the extra room- something that we had meant to do for a while and we had managed to budget for it now with hosting my family in a month and a half. The man came to install at about 10 o'clock and was finished at about noon. I still had to hang at home to wait for another delivery. I actually didn't think we needed to buy one, but Ritsy wanted to buy an upgrade on our old dining room table- so we had found one that I kind of liked that wasn't too expensive at Nitori. Heck, I like buying things- so it wasn't a hard sell for her, anyway that new dining room table arrived today at 3:30. I just hope we use it more than the old one- we were pretty much just eating in front of the TV everyday.

With the deliveries out of the way, I had to give Ritsy some time to sleep as she had worked the graveyard shift the night before and had to keep waking up to help with the deliveries. Finally at 5 pm she woke up and we went to pick up my car. They had finally fixed her and she looked beautiful with the new bumper, to help my special lady (my car, not the wife) feel even nicer I splurged and bought her an oil change. It is nice to have the car back again- even though my loaner was also a Vitz it just didn't feel exactly the same to drive.

Now with my car back we decided to have some food. We are pretty excited that they are opening a Denny's not too far away in Hamamatsu and we swung by to see if it is open yet, but not until Wednesday. By the way- Denny's is a bit different here in Japan than back home- in Canada we get a lot of sandwhiches and burgers on the menu (my all time favorite name- Moons Over My Hammy - is not available here)- here you can have pasta, Japanese style food and only features two sandwiches! So we decided to go to a pretty nice little Italian restaurant called Capellini which is located across from the Hamakita drivers license center. I think the food is nice and their antipasto layout is nice but it is pricey and I find the menu to be a little confusing ( it is comprised of about 209 pieces of paper). It was a nice dinner and we were stuffed afterwards!

Tomorrow should also be productive. I have an early class (oops I have to hit the hay!) then I will probably have a quick nap then we need to go and do some banking and I can finally pick up my new Spousal Visa. I don't look forward to going in there after we had complained (to a number of offices) I feel there may be some averted gazes and some insincere butt-kissing, I would be happy if I could just slip in and then out again...

That's Japan! (Issue 2)

Welcome back to America's favorite sporadically released issue of That's Japan! This week we will explore a now defunct trend, a red train, music blaring out everywhere, gift buying and Fashion accidents in everyone's favorite wacky destination!1. Morning Bell

This may only be strange for me, but in Japan there is a very large scale public address system that is transmitted over loudspeakers. These things are placed Everywhere! I think the thing that makes it sound creepy to me is that I can't understand what the heck they are saying when they are making an announcement. It makes me feel like I am in wartime and they are informing us of the latest bombings- it could be because the only time I have heard loudspeakers in Canada is when they are testing out the Air-raid sirens. The truth of the matter is that the bulletins are usually for good purposes like if someone's grandmother has gone wandering or if there is an accident locally ( don't laugh families traditionally live with their grandparents, so when they get old and more senile they can easily wander off). Everyday at 7:30 am, noon, and 5:00 pm they always play a different song. Ritsy wasn't sure what the name of the morning song is, the afternoon song used to be different but it has been changed to chimes like Big Ben might make and the evening song is a contemporary Children's song- which I think is called Yuyake Koyake (though Ritsy thought it was Toki Yamani hiwa ochi de- web search shows no results). This website has a midi sample, thought I don't think it sounds as cool....

2. Me-do Kissa (maid coffee shop)

In Japan there is a large 'otaku' or 'geek' culture as we would probably call it. As manga, or Japanese comic books, are largely successful, the often oddly dressed and enigmatic characters are popular to emulate. So a trend of coffee houses having waitresses geared in showy maid uniforms was quite big for a number of years. Unfortunately, this strange and somewhat fetishy trend has fizzled in recent years.

3. Aka-Den

As I wanted to focus on at least one thing uniquely Hamamatsu- I will talk about the only form of mass transportation worth talking about to us in North Hamamatsu- the red train (or aka den). Of course, Aka- den is the nickname for the train- the train company is actually called Enshu Tetsudo or Entetsu for short. It basically runs on a 90 degree angle from the JR line heading north running about 16 kilometers. That's it. If you don't have a vehicle- you are stuck taking the bus, which for no logical reason is much more expensive than the train. It does run pretty often- every 12 minutes, but the last train runs at about 11:40- so if I get stuck in city center after that, it's a 4000 yen cab ride to where I live. I have done it a few times! Another seeming oversight is that, while Hamamatsu has the world HQ's for some large companies; like Yamaha Music, Honda Motorcycles and Roland, the train only services one of the companies. Oh I said this was the only train worth mentioning, there is one more that runs north of Hamanako called the TenHama line. The train is more geared as a sight-seeing train and only runs once an hour. I had to take the train for a couple of my classes last year, believe me you don't want to be late for your train when taking that one! I don't know if this will work but last year, I had put up some pictures of me waiting for the TenHama in Morimachi- if it works you should be able to click here.

4. Omiyage

Going on a trip to Kyoto? Better not come home empty handed. Well, it's not actually a prerequisite, but one of the fun traditions of Japan is bringing back some sort of edible souvenirs from your destinations for your students or colleagues. As you will learn from this fantastic blog, pretty much everywhere in Japan has some sort of famous food, so people will usually bring back a little snack (usually bought at the train station) for everyone to enjoy. A good example that I mentioned before is Unagi pie- which I brought to my friends in the Nagoya Office for Time/Life the company that I work for- as unagi is the big gift from Hamamatsu.
5. Yamaba

I actually thought they were called 'garu' but this website really clarifies things, there are many categories of this (IMHO) horrible fashion. The basic idea is that some young girls love to paint their faces with large amounts of make-up (to the point they look like a clown) and suntan almost daily and bleach their hair blond to disfigure their appearance and look, well just strange. Hey, to each his/her own- don't get me wrong-- it's just something you will only see in Japan.I haven't seen too much of this trend in Hamamatsu but it will be a common sight in the larger cities.

That's this entry of That's Japan! Tune in next time as we dig deeper into the culture and uniqueness of this beautiful country!

Whistler remembered

I was trying to remember exactly how long I lived in Whistler and I realized that it must have been about 3-4 years in total. What a beautiful place to live - a popular, bustling, beautiful ski resort only about a 1.5 hour drive from Vancouver! The winters are just amazing especially on fresh powder days, and the view is amazing. The lifestyle was very fun, but it does get a little wearing, there is a lot of partying involved- I think it is the first time a lot of people leave home and end up going just nuts- much like going to college! Another great thing about Whistler of course is that it is where Ritsy and I met!

In this picture, Ritsy would be standing about 100 meters away from the doors to the Brewhouse, the restaurant we worked together at. Unfortunatel it won't be in this picture, it would be behind the photographer. It was a pretty crazy place to work, the winters would get downright busy with the huge seating capacity and the fact that it doubled as a pub and a restaurant.
This is a picture from one of the staff parties, with some of our ex-coworkers, Kayo, Emi, Marie-Lou, Eddie (Ritsy in the background) and our chef Clarke (he is the big man in the picture) he looks pretty scary, but he really was a great guy to work for!
On top of those fun times, there was apparently a bit of snowboarding to do up there. The view was just amazing, I sometimes loved sitting on the ski slope and resting and enjoying it.
It was an amazing place to live and holds some great memories, but there definitely came a time to leave. Of course, I didn't stop adventuring I simply moved on to Japan from there! I hope to get back there when the Olympics are on in 2010, it should be a blast!

A part of the drive to Whistler (I think it's Britannia Beach)

Assorted ramblings

The full moon shines over the Miyakoda area of Hamamatsu

Sorry, it's been a few days since posting, I will make 2 posts today...

1. Driving
It can be pretty scary driving around in this country at times. I am not saying that just because I had the accident a couple of weeks ago, I have actually thought so for quite a while. The first thing I have been noticing is that even though it is illegal to drive and talk on your cell phone, an alarming number of people are still driving with their keitai jammed up against their faces. In North America, without the law, we have seen a gravitation towards 'hands-free' kits- such as an earpiece and microphone for those worried about radiation or bluetooth devices for those just looking to free their hands. For the most part someone talking on their cell phone doesn't scare me, but some of the roads are quite a bit narrower than back home and at those times I think drivers need the ability to maneuver a little bit more than on a wider road. Just today, I passed by a guy driving a large dump truck at about 60 km/hour on a rather narrow road yammering away on his cell phone like there is no tomorrow. Freaks me out. I see at least a half dozen people each day on their 'keitais' in their cars, and I hope they crack down on this a bit more. Also of note, GPS (or Navi as they say here) devices are quite widespread with TV and DVD capabilities- I remember being on a bus on the highway one day and looking to my left to see a guy driving his truck and staring at the TV screen. Hello! You are Driving! It's also pretty common on the morning commute to see people reading and driving at the same time (quite literally- book open behind the steering wheel). If these people want to endanger their own lives, that is fine, but they endanger mine too- that is crossing the line!

2. Hamamatsu loves gyoza
In my class yesterday, my student told us that Hamamatsu eats more gyoza then any other city ( I guess that is on a per household basis). We sure do love our gyoza here! I know I do... My class picked their favorite gyoza in Hamamatsu:
- Fukuraiken -- located near Nishikajima station, they make only gyoza and apparently cook it very uniquely, so you can only eat it cooked at the restaurant. Apparently you can bring your own rice to eat- as they don't even make that.
- Maruwa -- is a store actually but apparently they make some great gyoza which you can buy either cooked or raw.
*Sorry I can't find a link for either just now!

Tojimbo picture borrowed from here

3. Fukui
I also learned about Fukui prefecture and Tojimbo yesterday from the same class. Fukui is about 5 hours to the north of Hamamatsu and there is a great fishing community there so you can enjoy fresh crab (which I would travel 5 hours for!). I also heard of the place called Tojimbo that has a dubious reputation as a popular place to commit suicide. According to the wikipedia, the area is also haunted by an old Buddhist priest. Looks like a beautiful place I would like to check it out sometime.