Cellphone pics are the new Polaroids

On Friday went out for lunch with Glenn to an all-you-can-eat meat restaurant. It's Brazilian, and the waiters come around with meat on huge skewers and shave off bits onto a place. They annoyingly say to everyone "it's elephant" or "it's alligator" when they cut the meat onto your plate - yeah, yeah, yeah just give me the meat.(We didn't laugh). All cuts of beef, chicken and pig were included. Steaks too, plus a buffet of salad, rice and stew. All for the equivalent of $9 (if you class 1000 yen as $10. Literal NZ dollars it's a bit more). Anyhow, it's enough meat to make you turn vegetarian. I think I got a headache from all the meat. But I gotta say, I've felt amazing ever since I went there. This vegetarian diet I've been keeping has been a cost saving exercise and I like it; but nothing makes you feel as good as a nice cut of meat.

It was a beautiful day, so after lunch we went to walk off the meat and have a look around Sannomiya.

Took this at a hyakuen - 100 yen shop.
The sleepy owl that I bought Emily was there!!! I love them!!



Alice in Wonderland: is the chair big, or is Glenn small...?



The tiniest Christmas tree I've ever seen...



A tree...dressed like Santa.



I just couldn't resist this shot. The sky was stunning, so blue and clear. Kobe is truly beautiful.



This owl is REAL.



Look at how amazing this bird is. You can see where those ornaments come from.
It's actually pretty sad. He was for sale in a shop similar to the Warehouse. Hardware, bulk food, cheap clothes and shoes and pets in really small, hot enclosures.



A huge beetle. There were also snakes and massive tuatara-esque lizards for sale. Plus fish, rabbits, chinchillas, dogs etc. The snakes were in tiny little plastic boxes about the size of that beetles box, and they were pressed up against the lids - so I decided against taking a pic out of fear.



And this guy wanted to take my picture, and then I wanted to take his so we got one of those shots where we're BOTH taking a photo of each other!! Hilarious!!

Included this because Sarah and I hung out on Saturday night and did Karaoke. We realised we both have a very similar musical vein, and we did an excellent rendition of this song - she was Billy I was the female back up. Other songs and groups included Faith No More - Epic, Stone Roses - I Wanna Be Adored, Madonna - La Isla Bonita, LOADS of Cranberries for Irish's sake, token U2 although neither of our hearts were in it, Who - My Generation, Damned - New Rose, Ramones, Smiths, Notorius B.I.G and more. The rap bit at the end of Eyes Without a Face was fun. I love the guitar riff at the end. We decided that Billy Idol is underrated.

Immature Rant

I got a new job, training starts next Wednesday. But I have to take my nose piercing out for this job. I know this is really pathetic, but it makes me sad, because I feel like it's giving away my youth and my freedom. I've had this piercing for eleven years, and have somehow escaped taking it out. Argh it's forcing me realise that there are steps to take which make us move into these roles in life - these aged roles. And they're all signposted - take out your piercing, because you're an adult. But I don't want to!!! :( I know why people just retreat into dark holes and play Xbox all day and night - it's a lot of pressure being out there in the big bad world, trying to meet peoples expectations while trying to maintain some sort of individualism or some idea of who you are without selling yourself out. But if you want success and money you have to conform to these specific ideals and standards!!!

In lighter news, I met a Japanese friend today for a coffee - went to Starbucks - I feel bad for going there, but I wanted something big and that I knew I'd like. I'm such a westerner! I taught her "cool" and "dick" i.e she's cool, or she's a dick. She was surprised that you could call a girl a dick. There is a lot of gender specific language in Japan, I said you'd only say it around friends, but it's fine for a girl to say. I also taught her lame, nerd and geek. And some other more normal stuff like "how are you?" I'm great, good, fine, ok, not good - in that scale. The Japanese are taught that "fine" is the top 100% best word if you're feeling super fantastic. I told her it's not right - it's not what we say, eh? Fine is only ok for us. Well anyway, I'm corrupting the Japanese one person at a time...

When I start working, I won't have so much time to think about the complexities and inner workings of life. That'll be good!!

Went to a club

It was called Club Karma, and we went because the music mix that was listed seemed similar to Mixtape. You have to pay to get into pretty much every club here, so it's important to choose the right one!! This was about 3500 yen, to the Japanese 1000 yen is kind of like ten bucks. So not THAT cheap when you look at it through our NZ eyes...I suppose we should feel lucky that we have lots of free options when we go out, because it's not normal!

Took some pics of the DJs and the crowd as it was definitely a different experience to going out back home...

The DJ's - there were about three or four of them - look the part and take themselves very seriously.

You can still smoke in bars here. The DJs chainsmoked, and relished any opportunity they had to use the smoke as a "cool" DJ accessory.

Doing some "serious mixing" here.
The funniest thing is - they used CDjays - and BADLY!!

Jesus Christ Pose.

More "serious mixing".

They acted like they were Justice or something, and they were only playing Kaiser Chiefs and Lily Allen!

But it was the crowd...

The crowd fed these DJs on. Everyone dances to the DJs, looking adoringly at them. Getting in a sweaty mess (while keeping their distinct personal space).

This guy kept doing air guitar, air drums, air saxophone, air anything (pretty well). He looked like a nerd who lived at home still. I asked to take his picture and got this. I thought it was a mistake so asked to take another...

That's my finger going "wait, now!" then I realised he was choosing to make that face. It adds to my theory of Japanese photo posing lessons as part of their schooling.

It was a great night because of these guys.
Memories of mixtape came flooding back when we heard the Cure and The Rapture.

I made a new friend!

And she is totally cool. Her name is Sarah and she's from Ireland - I met her through my Saturday job! I went to visit her yesterday in Nishinagahori, part of Osaka, near Shinsaibashi. She actually lives near where I went with Josephine and Caro, and so I got to take another look at the place where we were - "Amerikamura"

Remember those hosts I took pics of? I saw their advertisement on a building!!
I chose Issa for my husband.

Not sure what these are exactly, but I like them.
They were outside of a restaurant or a hotel. Or a restaurant in a hotel.

Sarah.
After this, she took me shopping to a place called Thank You Mart, where everything is 390 yen.

I'll get married wearing these glasses instead of a veil.

Sarah found some shamrocks.

Some Japanese graffiti in a wheelchair toilet.
Does that say what I think it does...?

Photostickers - or purikura as they're called. We did some. I like them.

Bottom Trawling TV

I REALLY miss Jetplanes - as in the lolly. There aren't any firm, gelatinous lollies which are up to my standards here. I'm eating some Haribo "Tropifruitti" crap right now, it's just not the same :'(

It was a long weekend here - not that my time here so far has been anything BUT a long weekend; that's gonna change soon I hope as I was accepted into a full time job which starts on December 2nd!! That was the last I heard from them - I'm waiting for more details, so I won't confirm in my head that I'm truly doing it until I get those details.

Still been working on Saturdays - and so my Friday night tradition has evolved into watching Japanese TV. It's awesome. Most shows revolve around a cast of Japanese "comedians" - I suppose they're more like "personalities" i.e the way you see Jason Gunn, Mark Ellis etc on every show in NZ. The shows are either the comedians doing weird stuff that I can't understand, or watching a video of someone else doing weird stuff and us observing the comedians reactions. There's one show though that I love - and it's all about bottom trawling!! Fishermen go out and scrape the bottom of the ocean for fish. If you know anything about bottom trawling, you'll know it's terrible because it ruins the oceans ecosystems, and much of the fish is discarded (in New Zealand anyway...) - so it's a lazy and destructive way of collecting fish, to simplify it.

HOWEVER - the fish they pull out are seriously from another planet, time, era, whatever. The creatures are fantastic - stuff that is all gelatinous and see through, that look like old men, giant eyes, electricity shooting through them, look like mud on one side with the consistency of mud, then turn them over and it's an octopus kinda thing. And the OTHER best thing is - they chuck whatever fish they find into a nabe - just a pot with water and an onion or something - boil it up, and eat it on the spot. My uncles girlfriend was here - we were saying "ewww" at all the stuff during the show, especially the mud octopus. Then I said "would you eat that?"
Without hesitation she said "yes".

Big Stuff in Japan

There was this strip mall in Shinsaibashi in which I realised I had taken several photos of big things - signage, billboards and that type of thing.

Happy light man.

Octopus - tako!

Crab.

Fugu.

Your Dad.

You.

That's Entertainment

All of the schools and university's in Japan have these festival days, and I guess they are kind of an equivalent to our Orientation days. They always get some huge band or comedian (Japanese on both accounts) to come play and there are exhibitions, stalls etc. Kobe University, my local, had theirs on Sunday and I think the theme was Jazz and Rock. My uncle said I should go, so I begrudgingly went; expecting twee everything which I wasn't in the mood for. But it turned out to be pretty awesome.

That same day two Japanese girls my age came over to meet me - their names were Mio and Nacho. NACHO! Heeheheheheeee. We're going to go do something sometime, perhaps go out for dinner...Mexican?

Before I begin: Here's Col Sanders in a Santa Suit, snapped in Itami. It gives me the creeps.

Completely off topic here, but Christmas in Japan is a day to take your boyfriend or girlfriend on a date. Apparently KFC is a big choice of venue! Also they celebrate Christmas on the 24th.

I arrived, and walked into the university. I was drawn to some grungy psychedelic guitar sounds with organs. These were the guys responsible for said sounds. The band is complete with a nerdy drummer. They were really good.

You can tell they like Kurt Cobain. There's nothing wrong with that!

Band list. I think I was either watching Kasuppa, or the one at 15.20.
I wish I saw My Chemical Robinz.

I think I told you that Rokko, my area, is famous for these wild pigs that roam around and are known to attack. They must do their studies at Kobe University first.

Hmm, how can I explain this...

Well, after the first band, I heard some punk guitar noise, so followed it. I stood to watch (I should mention I was the only foreigner on campus) and these guys sidled up to me, trying to make fun of the foreigner. The guy on the far right asked me to put on the glasses. I was thrilled, and got them to take a picture. They didn't anticipate that I would want to play. I thus won their respect. Then all through the performance they guys kept coming up and giving me "presents" - noodles, two beaten up drum sticks, a neck of a guitar broken off from the body...I had to say no to the last gift.

They are the most "alternative" Japanese guys I've seen so far - everyone else dresses very much in fashion. They reminded me of guys at home.

They all had eggs. I was nervous that they were going to egg me. After I turned down the head and neck of the guitar, I suggested they use the neck like a baseball bat, and hit some eggs with it (naturally). This guy responded quite positively to my suggestion. He put eggs under his mask, and insisted we hit the eggs with the guitar. Ok!!

You will notice he has eggs in place of his eyes.
It looked hilarious when they were intact!!

Proud Samurai Eggio-San.

Eggio-San posing with the guitar neck. I think part of Japanese schooling must be on how to do the coolest poses for the camera.

Ok fun's over. Sunset time.

The next noise I was drawn to was the sound of Japanese Cheerleaders.

They're similar to American Cheerleaders except they're cute and exciting!!

The guys roles are way different. They either stand with their hands on their hips, legs akimbo (always wanted to use that word) and scream; or they come to the front and do all of these fast martial art type movements.