10 things Japanese TV has taught me

from Smashed and Sinking we have a list of 10 things learned from Japanese TV. Picked from the list:

1) All food on earth is ungodly and orgasmically delicious.

Watch virtually any travel program and you get to see this in practise. EVERY single thing they eat is the best thing ever made on earth.

3) All I really needed in life is a speedo and a catchphrase

I cannot begin to count the number of guys in Speedos, on Japanese TV. It is like an unwritten rule that every variety show must have at least one fella in a Speedo.

9) Japan single-handedly keeps poster board companies in business. It’s like the news and variety shows never even learned that computer graphics were invented

I realized this after the first morning news program. They literally cut articles out of the newspaper and tacked them to a posterboard. With VERY neat highlighting around each article being discussed. Very surreal moment .... The most high tech country in the world and they use posterboard and highlighters for topics to discuss on the news. Unreal.

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back from Japan

Sorry for not posting lately, will make it up to everyone  though with a huge amount of photos and videos from Japan.  Over 580 photos and videos on my camera cards.  

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What you must do in Japan and must not do

First up is a fun article from Nihon Sun about the 25 things that are must do while in Japan. Shane uses the communication power of Twitter to add to a unispiring list from Japan Times with very interesting results. Boarding the Yamanote line at 7:27 sounds likean invitation to a crushing death, Going to Sado Island for Earth day and seeing the KODO taiko troupe would be simply indescribable. Those are from the original Japan Times article, but the suggestions from the twitter responses add so much more:

@ajep would like to find a quiet suburban temple on New Year’s Eve & listen to the temple bells at midnight before hatsumode.  He also wants to watch sumo basho (tournament) from the front row

@JapanMike suggests seeing a Soran Bushi (traditional Japanese folk dance song and dance) performance live. He says “It’s one of the most awesome spectacles I’ve seen, especially when it’s on stage.”  View Soran Bushi on YouTube

@tokyotopia wants to go to the Nagano tree rolling festival - and hopes she won’t die doing it!

next up is 10 things NOT to do while in Japan. I know it would be hard to adjust to a squat toilet but I did not think the Emperor of Japan posed for photos. 

Number 4 -  Go for overly priced cocktails at The New York Bar overlooking the lights of Shinjuku in a lame attempt to recreate a scene from Lost in Translation.

no worries there, those scenes were my least favorite in that movie..

Number 2 -  Attempt to order a California roll at a sushi restaurant and wonder why the chef is giving them a funny look – it’s sushi after all isn’t it?

this kind of stuff mystifies me ... why the hell would some go thousands of miles to eat McDonalds' or the same kind of sushi they get at home? Yeesh ...

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Strangest train rider ever

This guy either had to much sake or pulled a double shift at work. Via TokyoMango:

John says:

I took this photo with my iPhone on the Hibiya line in Tokyo. I patted the guy on the back and said Naka-Meguro a few times (the station was coming up) but got absolutely no response.

Photo by John Kostiuk

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Modern Samurai

Watch and be amazed ...

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Love and Pop

Love and Pop is Hideki Anno's movie of the novel Topaz 2. It is about 4 teen schoolgirls in Tokyo and the involvelment in the practise of enjo kosai or compensated dating the practise of salarimen in japan to pay young girls to go on dates with them. From the Wiki:

The film follows four Japanese high school girls who engage in enjo kosai, or compensated dating. This is a practice in Japan where older businessmen pay teenage girls more commonly to simply spend time with them, or rarely for prostitution. The movie is also a coming-of-age story. The main character, Hiromi, does not have the direction in life that her friends already have. Hiromi's friends were going to buy Hiromi a ring, but Hiromi refuses to take all the money because she doesn't want her friends to be jealous. Hiromi goes on dates by herself to get money for the ring. Soon, she gets in over her head. Hiromi falls too far into the world of enjo-kosai as she tries to hold onto a "friends forever" vision of the past.

Anno (of Neon Genesis Evangelion  fame) uses a digital video camera to get very unusual angles and set the tone. The way the salarimen pop out of the woodwork at the girls is just creepy!!

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from bed to commute in less than 5 minutes!

via Japan Probe:

Comedian Tomonori Jinnai shows us how to get up, eat breakfast, and get ready for work in just five minutes:

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Tarako craziness

Tarako is a pasta sauce made from cod roe (yes fish eggs!) and mayonaise. As weird as putting that combo on pasta may sound, and I am told its very good, the advertisements are a thing from another world. Mutant Kewpie dolls marching in formation at little children, pure nightmare inducing...  And the advertising dept. has proven to be one VERY prolific bunch. The kewpie dolls and the singing children are becoming an internet meme...

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Fire breathing life size super mecha

from Tokyo Mango:

Tonight in Roppongi happened already, but if you happened to have been there you would have seen the debut of this 7-meter tall aluminum fire-breathing robot called Giant Torayan. It's actually the creation of artist Kenji Yanobe, and it's part of an awesome art project that will transform the entire neighborhood into an alien robot-themed wonderland

This looks awesome, I want one for the front yard.  (image by AP)

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bad engrish

via Neil_Duckett.

Not since Who Gives a F*CK? have i seen such a misuse of the word … this is “master” from the new bar near my joint.

its like those people who get tattoos in Japanese kanji that they think means "Honor and pride" but really mean "I like sheep" ... 

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Kaiten (conveyor) sushi time in real Japan

A gaijin in Japan sticks her video camera on a conveyor belt in Hokkaido Japan. Watching the reactions is priceless, especially the little kids.

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That guy can park

So, this morning I was remarking about how hard it has become for me to back my car up in reverse. Judging distances, angles, etc. Then I see this video on Japan Probe of an 84 year old man in Japan who backs his car into a garage so narrow he has to fold the mirrors flat when he backs in. There is a sliding door installed in the side of the garage that he must open to allow him to open his car doors and get out. Unreal skillz...

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Ramune soda and Coddswallop bottles

originally from Boing Boing Gadgets:

One of my favorite treats at an Asian grocery store is Ramune. Ramune is a soda with Japanese origins (there's aTaiwanese version as well) that comes in a variety of sugary-sweet flavors. But the cool thing about Ramune isn't the taste; it's the container. Bottles of the soda are sealed up with a marble. To open them, you have to force the marble down into the bottle, where it gets captured in a small chamber within. Pop it in hard and it makes a fizzy mess; which of course can be part of the appeal of drinking it. While the bottle may appear novel, once again it's in fact an old technologythat just happens to feel delightfully modern.

The bottle is a Codd Stopper, invented by soda magnate Hiram Codd (of the Camberwell Coddses, not those low born mother-scratching Devonshire Coddses) and patented in 1873. The idea is that the bottle uses internal pressure from carbonation to force the marble up against the rubber stopper at the lip, sealing your tasty beverage inside. 

These bottles were not popular in the US but apparently remain popular in Asia. Something to look for next time I am in a Asian foods store. The first few minutes of this video show a kid opening a bottle of Ramune:

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Inside a Pachinko Parlor

You can just smell the sweat and cigarette smoke oozing from this place.

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