July 2007 Archives

Man, Fuji Rock Festival was a blast! So much music, so many people, so much food.

We arrived at the festival grounds after 5 hours on various trains and an hour on a bus. It was 1 am. It took us an hour to get get our wrist bands and grab some 2 am curry. The camp grounds were already full of tents, and we had to walk quite a ways up the side of the mountain to find a spot for our tent. Crazy amounts of people.

The festival grounds are up in the mountains, which means a pretty view and cooler weather. The place we were camping on was part of a ski area, complete with lifts. The pictures below let you see how many tents there were.

If I take away one thing about this festival, its how well behaved and clean it was. People were sorting trash left and right, there was no real litter problem, and while there were many drunk people we hardly ever saw anyone throwing up or passing out. (We did see a lot of people passed out, but mostly because they had been up all night partying and were sleeping the day away waiting for the night acts.)

There were three main large stages and 3 or 4 smaller stages. Shows were usually an hour long with a half an hour or so break between them. Because many of the acts were being filmed and shown on TV this meant that there was a strict schedule that people had to stick with. So no shows ran over, and almost all started on time.

The festival was super large. 60,000 or so people, though you wouldn't have known it unless you were at the headlining shows in the evening. The festival was so super spread out. It probably took a good half an hour to walk from on side to the other WITHOUT dealing with the crowds. We got quite the leg workout. Luckily there was a lot of good food. Indian, Korean, Chinese, Mexican, Hawaiian, American, Japanese. And all of it was quite cheap. Usually only 500¥ for an 'order' of grub.

Besides music there were plenty of other fun things to do. Lots of small shops, food, silly activities, and side shows. We enjoyed the group of cavemen who pushed a rock around the entire weekend. (Paid to be there no less.)

We random side even we attended was an autographic signing by "The Shins," a group Kate and I enjoy way too much. Kate had brought a CD there and had gotten a ticket for an autograph signing. But before they signed they played two songs for the group of 50 people who had showed up. They were really nice and posed for some pictures with fans afterwards (and were then mobbed by Japanese girls.)

In case you were not there, enjoy this video I took with my digital camera. (The sound quality sucks. Sorry.)

It wouldn't be a festival without rain. Luckily it didn't rain very much, we just ended up having clouds descend on us over the mountains and the occasional small amount of rain. That didn't hamper the fans who had come well prepared with rain gear and big rubber boots. No, seriously. Like a third of the festival goers were constantly wearing rubber boots. Seems it rained a lot last year.

We didn't mind a bit.

Random things that happened to us:

1) Kate and I had some curry and said "hey" to both the Chemical Brothers, who happen to like getting curry at midnight.
2) Bill and I had a guy come up as ask "Do you guys have any pills?" Which is odd because Bill and I don't look like the kind of guys who would have pills.
3) Iggy, of Iggy and the Stooges, got floored after having a hundred audience members come up on stage. He also fell off the stage and we all thought he had broken a hip or something at one point.

Monday we managed to get up (not too tough when loud speakers are going off) at 7 am and to the train station by 8:30. We even made it back to Fukuyama by 4 pm! The festival was a great time and I would love to go again. Worth ever yen I spent. (Most of it on food.

If you need me in the next couple of days I'm afraid you'll have to speak a bit more loudly. It'll be tough to hear you over the rock music I'll be grooving to at the Fuji Rock Festival. Three days of camping, music, and Mount Fuji (which I can proudly say I have never ever climbed). If you want to check out the line up, click away. I'll try and post a few pictures in-between the rock festival and when I leave for Fiji for some diving. That is, if I'm not too rocked out.

If you like hearing my voice, as I do, then watch these two video reviews I made the other evening instead of packing for my trips.

Taiko no Tatsujin DS Touch de Dokodon (太鼓の達人DS タッチでドコドン！)

One Sentence Review: How could you not love this game? (Answer: You love it too much and kill your touch pad!)

Transformers DS

One Sentence Review: A great idea, but sadly a typical movie sell out.

Rockman ZX Advent (Megaman ZX Advent)

One Sentence Review: Improved, but nothing we've not seen 20 times before.

Thats it for now. Enjoy away.

If for some reason you're afraid of the water, and still want to experience SCUBA Diving you may actually have an option. Seems someone in Japan felt the urge to make a diving game for the Nintendo Wii. Check out the video to see what you're missing (or not missing if you actually dive.)

For the record I have never kissed a dolphin.

I often wish I didn't know english so I could use fun DS games to learn how to speak. (Though I guess if I didn't know english I wouldn't be here, and thus wouldn't have access to get these games, but thats not the point.) Just check out this game below and then wonder why no one in Japan can speak English. Seriously, my kids have no excuse when there are games like this around!

I'll play it anyways.... rock the high scores!

Like most children I had a short lived obsession with postage stamp collecting at one point. After several months of collecting every stamp in sight I ended up with several shoe boxes filled with worthless stamps and a lot of torn letters. While the urge to collect stamps left me long ago, my interest in them has grown while in Japan. During any trip to the post office you can find a stand advertising various collectable stamps you can order. They range from serious Japanese ones, to overly cute Hello Kitty ones. Last year the internet was abuzz when a set of old school Super Mario Brothers stamps was released. I posted a set of Domokun stamps on my want list for my birthday last year (and in case you're wondering, no I did not get them!). Now for your viewing pleasure here are two sets of stamps that I bought from my local post office the other day. (And then I returned home to find I already had 20 post card stamps sitting around and no letter stamps. Sighhh....)

The first is this wonderful set of marine life stamps. They were so nice I had to send off a post card right away, which is why one is missing. (Click on it to see it much much bigger) They make a nice addition to the marine life post cards I've been sending out lately.

I was all set to leave with my fish stamps, when I saw the "Japan India Friendship" stamps. They were so nice that I had to buy some. Though I don't know if I'll use them. I've included the full set as well as small sets. They're just so darn nice.

Now if only I could figure out some way to get rid of all these stamps...

I've been lazy in my blog love. So heres a week worth of fun in one go.

Friday the 13th was party time in Fukuyama. Black and White Party time. A chance to get all dressed up, and sweat our asses off while drinking too much. At least I ate my own weight in beef. Sweet sweet beef. I even wore my super cool Spiderman tie! It was sooooo hot.

If you heard, yes, there was an earthquake. Several people were killed. Many injured. Not anywhere near me. Nothing. Though on the upside it did cause a nice big radio active fire and leak! Now we play the game where the Japanese government downplays the problem until a lot of people get sick and then pass the buck around until no one takes responsibility.

In case my blog wasn't fun enough for you, here is a thrilling interview with me on another webpage! All about my fun life and times in Japan. I bet you didn't know my life was so fun filled and weird!

As my weekend was filled with the wonderful rain of typhoons, and my Monday off was hampered by a lack of money and a typhoon, I decided to do some video reviewing. Thus here are three videos that I made while bored out of my mind Monday.

Kanji Sono Mama Rakubiki Jiten 漢字そのまま楽引辞典 DS Dictionary. Think of it as fun filled English to Japanese dictionaryness on your DS.

One sentence review: A very handy translation tool, but only if you know enough Japanese to navigate the program and figure out the features.

Touch the Dead. Horrible. Seriously. And I usually love anything with Zombies in it.

One sentence review: I wouldn't touch this game with a 10 foot pole, as it has probably already killed too many brain cells.

DS-Xtreme Flash Card. I'm enjoying it.

One sentence review: Its worth the $125 for its idiot proofness and the fact it will save you money in the long run.

So there you have it. Videos. Enjoy.

So Japan doesn't want the iPhone, eh?

Sophia Nani. Runs Windows CE. Has a bunch of fun features that will suck balls because it will run Windows CE and Windows Media Player. My guess is that it will cost as much as an iPhone, and in the end, lose to the iPhone in the Japanese market. It clearly doesn't have the 'cool' logo.

If you need me, I'll be waiting for my Japanese iPhone.

I keep a clean apartment. Or try too as best as possible in a very dusty situation. But sometimes I forget about things. Like when I used my rice cooker three weeks ago. The rice cooker I've only used twice in the past two years. Seems I left a lot of rice in it. For three weeks. While doing dishes last night I remembered the rice cooker. Dread filled my heart. I inched over to it. Slowly. It wasn't moving, so it couldn't be that bad. Could it?

It was. So disturbing. The mold was over EVERYTHING. It was hard. It had formed a hard skin. On plastic. The best part was it had eaten through most of the rice that was in there. I quickly took a few photos, as anyone would do, and then threw it all in the trash. And used a lot of soap. A lot. Yet another reason why I don't cook rice in my rice cooker.

After a year of wanting to go, I finally made it to the Poison Gas Island of Okunoshima. Located about an hour away from me this island used to be the main source of poison gas for Japan between 1929 and 1945. It was even taken off official maps! Odd, because its a 5 minute boat ride from the main land and clearly visible. These days the island is a tourist site. Yes. Thousands of people go there every year to look around whats left of the poison gas factories. I'm kidding, they come for the bunnies! Back in the day the Japanese tested the gases out on cute little bunnies. Feeling bad about it years later they decided to release a whole lot of bunnies and people feed them non stop. After exiting the boat my friends and I were swarmed by hungry bunnies.

Besides the bunnies you can see the ruins of the gas factory, though most of it was underground and now off limits. Along with the factory a whole lot of gas was buried on the island, and every so often they find that some of it leaks up. Which is why I guess they keep the bunnies around. If you find some dead bunnies, it means you have poison gas problems. The government seems to like ignoring this gas problem as much as possible.

Even though it is a very small island sitting on a whole lot of poison gas, people still come. There is even an overpriced hotel on the island so you can get all romantic while thinking about bunnies. The best was this sign we saw. "Protected Wildlife Area." This explains all the concrete slabs sitting behind the fence.

At least the bunnies were cute. And as we all know about Japan. Cute is what really matters.

While everyone in America is all super crazy about iPhone, I sit here in Japan and wish I even had the option to buy one. From what I've read the iPhone will probably be released in Japan the beginning of next year. Just about the time I'll be deciding where to head next in this big crazy world. But Japan and the iPhone. Will they mix? I've read some writings that say people in Japan will be unimpressed with the iPhone, or that the iPhone does nothing that Japanese phones don't already do. These statements both might be true, but only if you don't have first hand experience with Japanese people and their phones.

Japan and cell phones go together like giant robots and laser beams. Everyone has a cell phone. People tend to change phones every year or two. They are high tech, and they do have great features. But cell phones in Japan still suck. Horribly. Lets look at it three ways.

First are the plans. Japan's cell phones are not meant to be talked on. The plans reflect this (and I would know all too well after changing my plan a week ago). Lets take a look Softbank (formerly Vodafone Japan), the company I use and who most of my friends say have the cheapest rates. Their "M" plan coast about $50 USD a month and gives you 144 minutes of free talk time. Thats 144 a month, and thats excluding any data. Thats 14¥ a minute, or about 10 cents. There are no "night time" minutes, free long distance, or any hidden details. Thats it. Though as a side benefit, if you call another Softbank person between 1-9 pm its free. Competitor AU isn't any better, their "M" plan is almost exactly the same for call allowances. The problem is that cell phones in Japan are mainly used for texting. Just stand around any major station and you'll see every young person texting each other. Its cheap, its easy, and you can add a whole lot of cute pictures to it. Cute is probably the most important thing when dealing with phones.

The second thing are the phones. If you think Japanese phones are advanced, you're wrong. They may have been 5 years ago, but now they're way behind any halfway decent phone in the US or Europe, and they're no where near "Smart Phone" status. Lets look at Softbank again and their lineup. Softbank was the only one offering G3 Phones two years ago, and the only one with a G3 network in Japan. Two years ago they had only 3 G3 phones, now their lineup is mostly G3 stuff. Surprisingly the high end phones they're offering as some of the same high end phones you can find in the rest of the world!. Nokia and Sharp. Only recently has a cellphone with a full keyboard appeared on their webpage, something common in high end 'smart' phones back west. AU has an even more traditional Japanese lineup with lots of colorful and cute Japanese phones, made by Japanese companies. NTT Docomo has some of the coolest looking phones on the Japanese market, but they offer no compelling feature that any other phone doesn't offer.

The third thing are features. What people really care about on phones. Yes, Japanese phones take pictures and play music. Most phones do this these days. They go on the internet as well as can get email. Heck, you can even watch one or two channels of TV on some them (lets just say seeing this feature in action isn't as compelling as you'd expect). You can even use them to pay for drinks (you swipe you phone over a spot on a vending machine and it charges your phone bill. Not a lot of vending machine have this, and I have NEVER seen anyone use this feature.) So what? Do people actually care about this? No. Kids may use the music playing features of the phone, but just as many seem to be shelling out the $300 for an iPod. These phones can access the internet, but the suffer from the same bad internet features that US phones suffer from, making the internet painful to use. The only real feature that everyone in Japan uses is the strap hole. The little hole on the edge of a phone where you can attach fun straps. Everyone in this country has at least one on their phone. Some have more strap than phone.

There you have it. Japanese cell phones have great features that no one really uses, or are just extremely gimmicky. The iPhone will probably sell in Japan for the same reasons it will sell everywhere else. Ease of use, OS, Internet, music. As soon as a few pop stars start buying the iPhone all the kids will want it and soon it will be the next trendy fad in Japan. As long as Apple ads a cell phone strap spot. (Seriously)

Once again New Zealand fishermen have caught the largest squad on record. It weighs 990 lbs (450 kgs) and took over two hours to get on the boat. To put into perspective, this squad is over 30 feet long. Big enough to eat anyone I know.

But the worst part is, whenever I show this link to any of my friends here in Japan they all have the same response. "That would make for some big sashimi." I'm surprised some wealthily Japanese business hasn't already tried to buy it. (I'm sure it would taste great)

Has Apple snuck mini Apple Stores into big chain Japanese electronics stores? Just maybe. This past weekend I was in Hiroshima City spending some time drinking and partying. Following that I helped a certain friend buy some video out cables for her Macbook at the downtown Deo Deo Store. Now I'd not been in there for about 3 months, but I promise you that this set up was not there before. Instead of the usual drab Mac area the store now sported a new "Mac Store" on the forth floor. Heck, they even advertised the new "Mac Store" all over the rest of the store. Check out the pictures.

Note how it has its own little Genius Bar and has the overall same look as any big Apple Retail store (On the LCD they're running the Japanese Apple "I'm a Mac and I'm a PC" Ads. They're a riot.). They even put in carpet for part of it. What I didn't capture on film was the Japanese man in the black Apple t-shirt running around helping people, or the other Japanese man in a gray suit with an official Apple badge around his neck. I have to wonder if they're Apple employees or Deo Deo employees. After looking over the list of Apple Stores on Apple's webpage I can find no mention of this place. Is this a new marketing move by Apple Japan? Will we see more of these popping up around the country in the way we saw all the Apple Retail Stores in the US? I don't know, but it'd be nice if they were.

I don't know if I've posted this video before... but just watch it. The Japanese versions of these ads are much better than the US versions.

The Japanese daikon. Quite possibly the only thing (besides robots) that Japan does big. Its a radish that grows to epic sizes and is used in a lot of dishes here in Japan. But how does one grow a daikon? It seems easy enough. My neighbors do it all the time. These veggies even seem to flourish in the winter, growing larger then most children that I teach. Anyways, my parents broke international veggie import laws and brought a packet of daikon seeds home from Japan and now we have the first pictures of some Wisconsin Daikons. Sure, they look small. But soon enough they will be the envy of every single veggie in the state. Look out state fair, here comes the diakon!

The Japanese are overly obsessed with daikons. One of the weirdest things I've seen in the past couple of years was a news article about a town that rallied around a daikon growing in a road crack. Yes. All it takes is a daikon to lift the spirits of Japanese people.

Hopefully they'll turn out alright. I've found some info on the web and hopefully it'll help my parents grow these little guys. (I for one think the weather in Wisconsin is much too mild to grow daikon. They need harsh environments to toughen them up.)

A while ago I posted a fun video of Bruce Willis badly speaking Japanese in an attempt to sell Die Hard 4.0 to the Japanese population. Well I went to see Die Hard 4.0 this past weekend and was surprised to find another couple of friendly American faces pimping their movie in bad Japanese. Just watch the below video of Michael Bay and Stephen Spielberg speaking bad Japanese in an attempt to sell Transformers back to the Japanese.

I mean, seriously. Could it be difficult to actually sell Transformers back to Japan? The movie has it all! Cars, planes, hot girls, giant robots! It's going to be a run away success here in Japan.

The end of the school year is soon at an end for me, which leave me ample time to do nothing. Or something. My something this summer first starts off with the Fuji Rock Festival on the 27th. Check out this lineup to see who I'll be rocking with that weekend.

Now my problem is that there are a lot of great bands playing, and not a lot of time. The way I see it I'll probably be running around at the end of each show trying to make it to another stage in time to see someone else. Do I see The Cure or Fountains of Wayne? Do I see The Shins or The Chemical Brothers? Do I catch Less Than Jake or catch Kula Shaker? Ok, I guess that last one was a bit obvious. I mean, who wouldn't see Kula Shaker if given the chance?

The Fuji Rock Festival is like the Woodstock of Japan. Except with less dirty hippies and mud diving. Unless there are some weird Japanese hippies I don't know about... No matter how you look at it, it'll be three days of rocking, tenting, and takoyaki.