Lumines and some Wanda

Well the Typhoon 21 will be here soon and the rain is already pouring. But by the end of the weekend it'll be gone and only traces like this will remain:


Last thursday was the trip to Tokyo which mainly went over well. After 7-8 hours of traveling I was walking the streets of Tokyo seeing stuff like this:

That's a new idea a cafe is trying. See they're putting their tables in the middle of the street with signs saying DO NO DRIVE INTO OUR CUSTOMERS or something like that. Unfortunately I didn't really see many tourists or locals flocking to the place.

Thursday night was get together with gaming-age people and others though. It was a good time for all and a heck of a lot of people (everyone in the picture only makes up about 1/4th the room which we entirely took up ^^; )


Friday was shopping in Akihabara for 8 hours :) Picked up a lot of good stuff, though the best thing I got was probably a set of 1st pressing FMA dvds vol.1-9. Vol.2 comes with a huge metal box to hold all the dvds, and vol.3 comes with a metal binder to hold all the notes distrobuted through the dvds. I won't name the price as it's too painful but I guess you could say it cost an arm and a leg (har har har ...gomen)



Also "THE ULTIMATE VERSUS" dvd. See Versus was made in 1999, then after it became this kinda cult classic (by people with good taste), director Ryuhei Kitamura decided it would be a fun project to get everyone in the cast back together, put on all their old make up and costumes, go back to the forest they shot at, and make new scenes to splice into the film. So the movie has a whole bunch of new cuts ranging from a new 4 sec shot of guy blocking a sword, to a new 3 min section added into the final battle. The result is kinda wierd but cool. The quality of the new footage is much better than the original grainy filmed on crappy equipment version so you can tell what shots are new pretty fast. The 2 dvd set also has a great making of the new footage documentary showing how everyone in the cast kept getting injured because none of them are professional stunt people, so during fake fighting they would accidently connect with the other person and injure them. The 2nd dvd is loaded with 18 mins of deleted scenes which rock (including more scenes to the monkey man's subplot during the final battle segment), a bunch of documentaries and a new mini-movie "Nervous 2" which deals with the monkey man dealing with his post-versus-ending trauam. Also everyone keeps talking about Versus 2 so it certainly seems like it will happen...maybe after Godzilla Final Wars?

Saturday was the show itself:


People on their way to the show.

Line into the place which wrapped around the entire convention center.



Some shots of a few booths. It was pretty dark in their and the men in suits were taking away cameras that got shots of anything that was "not to be seen outside this convention" so I didn't take many shots.

Hideo Kojima and military advisor Mori discuss features of the upcoming MGS3 including the bizarre Ape Escape tie-in where you have to rescue monkeys.


The show itself was ok. Nothing really stood out as amazing besides the new MGS3 trailer and maybe the 5 min spoilerfic trailer of the upcoming FFVII Advent Children film. Most interesting thing was probably playing Sony's upcoming portable 'jack-of-all-trades' handheld system, the PSP. Most of the software ranged from crap to average, but the new game by Rez creator Mizuguchi entitled Lumines left a strong impression on me.

The game itself is just another variation on a tetris puzzle game. But like Rez the music of the game is effected by everything you do in the game. So the game provides rhythms and you make the beats with setting up block combos. Even level adds another layer to the rhythm. This wouldn't have worked if it wasn't for the incredible sound system of the PSP. The sound quality was like watching a DTS track in a film with a high-quality reciver...in other words it sounded awesome. Considering that the current handheld on the market is restricted to below 16bit level of sound, this is a huge and very cool jump in that realm. The PSP screen was also quite nice, I really doubt this thing will launch for under $300 here, though if it does I'll be there on day one.


Wanda and the Collosi gets special mention just because it's the new game by the people that brought us ICO, the game closest to achieving the status of art in our society. There wasn't much to show of it yet other than that you play as a girl who must take down gigantic creatures by climbing them. The scale of the Collosi is perfectly crafted and their animation is very surreal. Indeed one to look forward to in 2005.

Sunday was trip back and catching up on saturday's missed FMA ep50:

Wow, was left pretty speechless.....1 ep left airing Saturday at 5:30am on Aomori TV. I give Bones credit for keeping the:
(curtousy of duckroll for the image)
...factor at an ultimate high for these past 2 eps, and I have no clue how they plan on closing this all, other than I doubt it will be a happy end.

Ending while still in the FMA mood, I'm currently finishing up the 2nd FMA action/rpg for PS2. Unlike the first game which was total crap and should never have been released, this is actually a decent (read 7/10) game with gorgeous anime sequences by Bones and a decent story to hold the somewhat limited fighting engine together.

On the road again...

Well just doing a small update before I take off on my trip to Tokyo tomorrow.

Was packing and realized if I actually wanted to take a few sets of clothes for variable weather, my current little backpack wasn't going to survive. So I ended up shopping at the mall for a new bigger travel backpack. I got one for around $80 and though it's pretty nice and bigger than my previous one, I'm still a little bummed that it's smaller than my gigantor backpack I left at home :\ Well I guess if it first 4-5 days of clothes and trip stuff and I can still wear it on my back it'll be good enough for weekend excursions and I'll probably just stick to a piece of luggage for a week or more vacations.

Otherwise I think I have everything in order. Got my tickets yesterday for the trains and luckly I got to use a deal their doing for round trip Aomori -> Tokyo by bullet train for a little under $300 compared to the little under $400 it would've been. I guess the $100 saved can make up for my backpack. Gotta wake up early and do all the 'gas = off', 'money = in wallet' checking and then I'm gonna until sunday. I'll return with pics and stories after that so yea...

In the meantime I found this CLAMP Kiseki (miracle) magazine vol.1 came out today.


It's not much, just a small magazine that has a collection of CLAMP's various artwork and some new interviews with them, but the main sell is that each volume comes with 3 various nice CLAMP chess pieces. There will be 12 volumes total (1 a month) and then at the end a CLAMP chess board + box to hold all the magazine issues will come out and you'll be able to play chess with CLAMP characters ^__^ Probably not worth it in the long run but since the monthly issues are only $15 it doesn't hit your wallet hard and is worth it for any CLAMP fan in Japan.

Attempted to go to KFC, ended up in Aomori

Week was pretty normal until friday came along.

Friday was the Junior High School's "enkai (party)". About 20+ of us gathered at some all you can eat all you can drink (tabehoudai, nomihoudai). Then we proceeded to drink A LOT of sake and eat much food. Suprisingly the food was really good and consisted of tons of normal stuff like Yakitori, fried squid, french fries, gyoza, steak, etc... So I was glad to take advantage of the unlimited food source. But all of us drank a bit too much and walked over to Karaoke afterwards where we drank and sang for a few hours of the night. The next day when looking at my cellphone I found these pictures from Karaoke although I don't remember having taken any ^^;;





Saturday was recovery and rest day. I mainly just caught up with the manga Deathnote by Obata Takeshi (art) & Ooba Tsugumi (story). Good stuff, though really really dialogue heavy which makes reading it slowww.


FMA49 "Beyond the Gate" was really good and gave enough hints so we can theorize on the big plot twist that will probably happen next week and explain the whole story.

really cool but fisheye-sugiru :P

At night I went to the late-night-cheaper movie showing of I, Robot. Overall I thought for a big Hollywood movie it actually turned out all-right. The story was interesting although tottered out near the end, and while I thought Smith's delivery made it seemed like he was reading off cue cards, the actual dialogue was cute and I smiled a few times. Lastly the special effects were really impressive. It wasn't a fantastic film, but I'd say it's better than any of the big budget Hollywood films from this summer or even this year so far, and also a far more enjoyable outing into the future than Speilberg's last attempt.

Sunday I felt like having some KFC so I decided to try driving to the next town over which is Goshogawara. Along the way I kinda missed the exit so I just kept driving...and kept going...and kept going. Passing lots of gorgeous scenery filled with cliffsides, tunnels (woohoo a 1st for me), lakes, and forests I arrived around Aomori (I think there is a faster way to get there, but that requires expressways which I assume you must pay for).

Driving in West Aomori was nice. You had wide roads most of the time:


Although other times the roads were small and the traffic sucks:


But all was good as I got to eat at a Bikkuri (surprised) Donkey resturaunt. There used to be one of these 5 mins from my old dorm in Nagoya so it was kinda a nostalgic experience. Also I give them credit for 3 things that stick out compared to the local food places here:

--Pepperoni pizza (I have yet to find a pizza place with pepperoni around here)
--Seasoned fries = awesome
--Huge sodas. The one in the picture is the regular size which is probably 2-3x larger than the average Japan regular size.

So yeah, it was as my friend John wears on his hat "Good Eatin'"

A few odds and ends pictures:



And then I went to Toys'r'us for the first time I think (maybe I've been in one in Nagoya, don't remember).

They actually have a pretty huge selection of games including some older rarer stuff. But it's all full retail price which sucks.

Though I did find "Shadow of Memories" for 198yen (~$1.75) at a Super Denkido. Probably the cheapest game I've ever seen, and I've heard it's a good adventure game to boot (by the person who just directed Suikoden IV). ^__^

When the kids sing out the future

Tribute albums are always interesting to listen to. They let you hear different takes on songs you like, and they also give you a little insight into the bands covering them.

But doing a cover song for a tribute album is not an easy thing. On one hand you're supposed to keep the song similar enough to be recognized, but yet if it's too similar it's boring. So you want to strive for a unique sound of your own that still contains the energy of the original. What I would consider a good example of a tribute album is Take Warning - A Tribute to Operation Ivy. In that tribute album each of the bands combined their musical style with the feeling of the original songs.


Well yesterday Synchronized Rocks - A Tribute to The Pillows came out and I've been giving it a few listens and here's my thoughts:


1. Runners High by Straight Liner: Pretty good vocals and guitar, but the drum track is bleh. Also this falls into the 'sounds a little too close to the original' category. B

2. Funny Bunny by Ellegarden: I'm pretty happy with this song. A-

3. Tomoesato no josei Mary by The Piece with Kuhara Kazuyuki: Sadly I suck and haven't heard the original 1990 version of this song ^^; My pre-1994 Pillows knowledge is barely passable. Still it's a good song. B

4. Vain Dog (in rain drop) by Noodles: Good stuff, the original version of the song was already pretty good and I think Noodles do a good enough job on their take of it. B+

5. Kono yo no hate made by YO-KING: Original song was great, so it was kinda hard to mess up. If anything it just falls into the 'too close' sounding. B-

6. Carnival by Chikuzen Sato: Pretty good, though not amazing. B

7. Little Busters by Going Under Ground: Arghh, the original song worked because of the energetic shouting of the lyrics. This slower, softer, duller emo version of the song is really disappointing. Especially since it's one of The Pillows signature songs. C

8. Our Love and Peace by Salon Music: Awesome. The original song was pretty off-beat and neat so Salon music giving a grungy, electronical version of it is really a cool song. Probably the most unique song on the album. A

9. Hybrid Rainbow by Bump of Chicken: My favorite Pillows song so I was expecting a lot and while I think their version is a bit to similar, the vocals are great and the new take on the guitar riffs is nice. Overall a satisfying job. A-

10. Strange Chameleon by Mr. Children: I've never liked Mr. Children so it comes as no surprise that I find their vesion slow take on Strange Chameleon to be mediocre. C

11. Sad Sad Kiddie by "YUTA.TOSHI.CHIHO and JIRO'S SESSION (from GLAY JIRO)": Pretty cool piano take on this song. Very different feel from the original, although I don't think the original was that great of a song ^^;. B+

----
So overall the album is ok. Maybe around a B level though maybe a B-/C+ is more appropriate. The biggest issue is just that at least 50% of the songs sound way too similar to the originals and thus are not very interesting. Also the song selection is mediocre IMO. This is a tribute to the Pillows having been releasing music for 15 years, so why are 80% of the tracks from their 2-3 albums that were released between 1999-2001. The lack of early Pillows songs is dissapointing and the complete lack of ANY songs of Thank You My Twilight (their incredible 2002 album) really sucks.

In good news their new Album "Good Dreams" is gonna be out at the start of November. These days they're pumping out songs fast with an album a year plus an EP in the middle of 2004.

Speaking of music, lately I've been listening to Mike Park's "For the Love of Music". I've always held much respect for Mike Park, ever since I first heard his lyrics in Skankin' pickle, the weaving of strong political and personal feelings through music has always strongly impressed me. Then you have how he built up Asian Man Records and all his support for Plea for Peace and you see someone who is not only intelligent but who makes every effort to change things. So I've always enjoyed his work.

Anyways, I've always been in and out of music throughout the years. Sometimes I'd be listening to a ton of albums for 3-5 years and knew all about what every band I liked was doing, and then other times I'd kinda distance myself off from the american music industry. So I was kinda not paying attention in 2003 when this solo album by Mike Park was released. But before I left for Japan I realized my brother had a Mike Park cd I had never heard, so I started listening to it.

Here I am 2 months later and still playing it quite often. The album is fantastic. Though I wouldn't go as far as saying its the best work he's done, about 1/2 the songs are A++ and the rest are all still in the A range. The lyrics are moving and easy to identify with as always with his work, and the arrangements on some of the tracks (like the 1st track "I'm supposed to be there too") are beautiful. Another amazing effort by an amazing person.

BRAIN FREEZE >_<

So Ghost in the Shell: Innocence came out on dvd today and I gave the film a watch in the evening...my brain still hurts :(

Basically Oshii managed to create the most difficult dialogue I've ever seen in a Japanese film. I don't think I'd be exaggerating if I said 50% of the dialogue is quotes from famous old literature or really old Japanese proverbs that all use the classical verb endings like 'arazu'. The other 50% is full of 6-8 kanji long technical and government terms. Needless to say I had to put Japanese subtitles on just to get any idea of what the hell everyone was talking about. Add in the fact that the film really isn't about a straight-foward plot but rather brings up themes and questions that you are supposed to ponder on your own, and you understand where my headache comes from.

Still from what I could make of it, it was a interesting film with some amazing scenes but I think it falls short of Oshii's live action stuff like Avalon and like the 1st GiTS film it's much weaker than the incredible GiTS:Standalone Complex TV series (including 2nd gig). The character designs, voice actors, directing and story in the TV series is just leagues above both films. Although to be fair, Innocence has almost nothing to do with the GiTS universe and Oshii could've made this exact same film about dolls on his own with different leads and it would've turned out the same.

One thing that was really helpful preface to the film was this review:

A couple of weeks before the release of Mamoru Oshii's eagerly awaited follow-up to Ghost in the Shell, the cult cyberpunk anime that proved such a key influence on the Matrix films, an exhibition entitled Dolls of Innocence opened at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo. It showcased a number of works whose influence is heavily saturated within this second movie, including the twisted, disproportionate foetal forms of Hiroko Igeta, the grotesque ensemble of transmogrified bodyparts stitched together ad hoc by Etsuko Miura and the most crucial impetus according to Oshii, the heavily eroticised doll sculptures of German surrealist Hans Bellmer (1902-1975).

Walking around the Dolls of Innocence exhibition was a singularly disquieting experience. Looking about quickly, the forms of the museum visitors seemed to mingle indistinguishably with those of the figures they'd come to see. A closer glance revealed the crucial differences: gaping body cavities held bounded by wooden rib cages, limbs grafted onto torsos by crude epoxy ball and socket arrangements, and in many cases missing altogether. Whilst the figures looked lifelike, such lacunae highlighted the obvious: they were clearly not alive. Yet as their glassy eyes glared from frozen, expressionless masks at the visitors from every corner of the gallery, there remained the air of something conscious, something knowing about their presence. This is the essence of Oshii's new film: that whilst what marks us out as human is clearly tangible, it remains as impossible to pinpoint or quantify as such abstract notions as "innocence".

Much could be made of Japan's doll obsession. From its traditional roots in celebrations such as that of the Hina Matsuri (or Girl's Day) every March when families take out their ornamental figures to ensure the happiness and well-being of their daughters, to everyone's favourite synthesised pet, the robotic dog created by Sony known as the AIBO, the nation seems driven with this urge to reconstruct the real without having to deal with the messy parts. Who was it that pointed out that the geisha represented the ultimate desire to reduce a woman's role to that of a purely functional "living doll"? I even heard recently that someone over here had managed to build a life-size robotic female whose chest heaved up and down to emulate her breathing. It would seem that Oshii's vision of the future isn't so far off after all.

Innocence features a lot of dolls, and their usage within the format of an animated film raises a host of interesting questions as to the numerous levels of distinction that can be made between the authentic and the simulated. Strictly speaking, a doll's purpose is the representation of the human form. For all their strivings for realism, dolls are an abstraction in the same way that animation is an abstraction of live action cinema (which in turn is an abstraction of the real thing, reality, a theme Oshii explored in his previous anti-animation Avalon). In both, there remains the question of balance between the realistic representation of the object and the removal of those niggling, redundant details. What is stripped out, the mind of the individual human observer fills in.

Oh and I finished Dororo. Bottom line is it was great, full review by me is here.

Been a while

Well due to the workings of the week, it seems like weekends are my safe haven for writing up stuff here. So expect most updates on sunday.

Breakdown of last week was something like this:
Monday - Goshogawara Japanese lessons. Very cool. All the english speakers got matched up with 2-3 Japanese speakers and then the Japanese people helped the english people learn Japanese. For the most part I just practiced conversation although one tough thing with normal Japanese speakers are that they don't know how they should teach you. Since we were having conversations at a normal pace every one and a while they'd throw out "use this instead of that" and I'd thank them, but for the most part we were just talking for an hour or so. Then when I asked the main guy in my group for some advice he said "hmm, sounds good but sometimes your speech sounds odd. Also you have a limited set of sentence connectors (which is a problem I have in english too)" Which was a helpful, but I mean just knowing I sound "odd" at times doesn't really tell me what I should do to fix it ^^;; I guess I'll just keeping having conversations with them and improving a little at a time if I can. For the last hour of the class, they asked me if I had any material to practice from. So I took out the somewhat new short story in the Kino no Tabi series by Keiichi Sigsawa entitled, "キノの旅 the Beautiful World -記憶の国 Their Memories-".

We started reading this together (with me reading and them helping me on the kanji I didn't know) but then every 1/2 page of so we would hit a kanji [i]that even they didn't know[/i]. At first they felt they were kinda surprised but as we started hitting more and more of these kanji they turned to me and said "Don't read this book, it's way beyond lvl.2 of the Japanese test and even hard for Japanese people to read". As much as I'd love to take their advice, since I want to be a translater in the future, I'm gonna need to be able to read stuff like this, so I'm gonna keep with it I do think.

Tues - Hmm, nothing much that I can recall.

Wed - Typhoon came and, unlike the previous one, actually did some damage. Nothing major around here but stuff was knocked around left and right. Wednesday was the day of the English Speech Contest in Ajigasawa and so with the power of the wind pushing us we pushed on to the speech contest building. The speech contest itself was pretty good and the english level of most of the students was pretty solid. Personally I think the way the contest was judged need a little work as some of the results were baffling. But everyone had fun and even the kids who lost didn't seem horribly heart-broken so all was good I guess.

The typhoon which was so strong it even knocked down a ummm....bus time-table thingy...

Ajigasawa's shore during the typhoon.

The post-typhoon-induced-ocean-waves were really amazing to behold. Beat the heck out of every other time I'd been to a beach. Seeing waves tall and fast crash one after another and wash up on shore was very cool indeed.

Thurs - Normal school day and then at night I got my car! Woohoo, being mobile sure is fun. The first thing I had to do was take a drive with my instructor where he yelled at me every 2 secs for not doing 'this' or 'that'. Basically it was like driving with your parents for the first time ^^;; After dropping him off and heading to the parking area somewhat near my home I was able to take a night drive to the local mall area of JUSCO and there I practiced my left-handed stick shifting and right handed signaling a bit. 4 Days later, today, I still need work but I've gotten pretty comfortable with driving around and not hitting cars/people/bikes/signs/animals.




A 1996 (or maybe '94, I'm still unsure) Subaru Imprezza 4WD. They did a good job fixing it up and cleaning it and the free cd player they installed is pretty nice.

Fri - Normal school as usual and then I picked up Sega's new game developed partly by RED entertainment (Sakura Taisen/Gungrave) and partly by Overworks (Shinobi/Kunoichi) called Dororo.

The story is about a man who trades the body parts of his unborn son to 48 majin (demon gods) in exchange for the power to conquor Japan. The baby is born and tossed down a river where as woodsman picks it up and raises it. The baby is missing 48 body parts and so the woodsman builds them out of wood for him (the manga was in the 1960 explaining the lack of science ^^;;), then the boy grows up and finds out that the 48 majin took his body and by defeating each one he will gain a body part back.

Adapted frin a 1960 manga by probably the most famous manga-ka in Japan, Tezuka Osamu (Astroboy, Metropolis), it features character designs re-envisioned by the author of Blade of the Immortal: Hiraoki Samura and monster designs by Mahiro Maeda (Blue Sub No.6, Gatekeepers, Last Exile, Animatrix short #2). With those kind of people behind it, it would be hard to go wrong. Well then again it is Sega and Sega these days is >_< Luckily besides some camera/control/hit detection issues the rest of the game is pretty fun. A good story told through many well directed cutscenes featuring the voices of famous seiyuu like Tomokazu Seki and Akio Otsuka; A large movelist that develops over time, tons of cool bosses (48+ !!); and for once a 2ndary character who doesn't suck. Probably my favorite Sega game since Shinobi or Kunoichi.


In all the time I've been in Japan in 2001/2002 and now I've never seen this in person once, even after many trips to Tokyo's Akihabara district. The box goes for about $180-200+ on Ebay and I was able to nab it for 7000yen (around ~$65-70). Now I just need to search for the MGS1 Premium Box while in Akihabara so that when I get my MGS3 box I will be complete! ^__^

Lastly for anyone who is familar with Berserk there is a new AWESOME trailer for the upcoming PS2 game. Looks like the game will be covering the manga from where the anime stopped (around vol.13) to where the manga was about ago (vol.26). The trailer features a new song from one of the greatest Japanese musicians ever Susumu Hirasawa. Link to trailer is here: http://www.gametrailers.com/gt_vault/t_berserk_jp.html



2-kyuu Kanji progress:

300/1000

Hmmm...

So friday was a nice dinner at a Korean resturant with the Board of Education employees. I thought the food was pretty good (never really had Korean food before), and as long as I didn't ask what I was eating everything was fine :)

The thing about these work-group social get-togethers (referred to as an 'enkai') is that trying to find the correct degree of alchohol that should be drank is very difficult yet necessary for the foreigner living in Japan. For foreigners, the situation usual breaks down into 2 categories:

A. Foreigner A drinks too much and ends up doing Karaoke all night with his fellow workers, yet the next day cannot remember what he sang or how he arrived home.

B. Foreigner B drinks too little and ends up sitting for 2-3 hours at a table with a bunch of drunk Japanese who are yelling and laughing entirely in heavy accents so the foreigner cannot understand them and is bored out of his or her mind.

Neither situation is very favorable for the foreigner. So I guess the ideal is to hit a middleground where the conversatations are funny even if you don't understand them, yet you can still walk straight. Personally I think finding the correct level is quite difficult and thus I think despite having only been here a month I'm already over enkais.

Saturday was mainly sleep and rest day. Which I think is one of the best type of days there is. Recouperating lost energy and eating well always makes a nice day.


Music:

I picked up my tickets to the Arabaki rock festival in Sendai (October 9th) today. So far only 6 bands are known, the biggest being The Pillows. Yet going by the band list from the previous years it seems like there will be about 30 bands playing all day across 3 stages. This should be pretty awesome because A. It's 3 days after my b-day, so it's like I actual have somewhere cool to go on my birthday weekend and B. Monday is a holiday so it's a nice 3 day weekend trip to Sendai filled with a day of music and then a day or exploring, sight-seeing, shopping :P

Travel:
I have officially made my Tokyo plans for TGS weekend (Sept 23rd-26th). I'll be staying in the most ghetto hotel ever made but hey it's ~$24 a night in the middle of Tokyo so I can't complain :) Still need to book my Shinkansen (bullet train) tickets, but I don't think they'll be sold out.

Games:

Finished Suikoden IV during the weekend. Overall the game had some annoying issues (loading, crap ship control, encounter rate at sea), but the rest of the game was good enough to look past the flaws (something that near impossible to do with III). While at it's heart the game is still a simple rpg with a unique touch of gathering the 108 stars of destiny, the nicely written expansive world view that connects each of these 100+ characters and connects even to the other characters of the previous games is really what makes the game shine. I think it falls in the ranks as follows S2 > S4 > S1 > S3.


Next up on the rpg front is either Paper Mario 2 or Rockman (Megaman) X: Command Mission. But I think I'll take a few days of working on my SF3:3S parrying and KOF3D
juggling skills before I get into another rpg :P

Growing Up On a Couch

Today I picked up a SD memory stick and a USB adapter
for it so I can transfer all the pictures I take with
my cellphone onto my computer. This is convienent as
unlike my bulky camera, I have my phone on my 24/7 so
I'll be taking a lot of pics with it. Sadly the
1.3megapixel camera with no flash has absolutely awful
image quality but if you scale it down enough it looks
decent I guess ^^;;

Yesterday was a pretty normal school day until 6th
period POTATOE PICKING :) Because the entire school
contains less than 100 hundred people staff included,
6th period is 'activity period' and it happens that
today was the day to pick the potatoes which they had
planted some time ago. Everyone seemed to have a
great time and I think it really helps the students
bond since they are so few and everyone knows each
other.





It's definitely quite a different experience than what I remember of school.

Not much else lately. Today was the 1st day of
"English club" which just consisted of a few students
interviewing me for an English newspaper they were
working on. I think the club will be great if I can
just think of things to do with it. My predecessor
used to teach them cooking and considering I can't
cook for the life of me I'll have to think of
something else that carries the English tag on it.

Tomorrow should be interesting as after work I was invited to go with the board of education to a good korean resturant in the next town over. Only downside is that I was told to bring between 3000-5000yen for the food which isn't even all you can eat nor all you can drink. That's a lot more than my 600yen hamburger combos ;.; Oh well I guess they pay us enough here.

Also school been pretty busy so my kanji studying still needs work:
Kanji down - 90
Kanji left - 910 :(