Voyage Junkie

A few days after the earthquake catastrophe, our friend Nik (featured on this blog in many previous posts) came to visit.  He escaped the rolling blackouts and possible heightened radiation of Yokohama by visiting first Osaka and then Gifu.  The next few posts will be dedicated to our many travels, but first, here are just a few Engrish signs we happened upon. On 3/17 we headed to Inuyama.  On the way to the train, we saw "Bakery Cannon."  Nik and Matt decided to go in and get lots of bread-centered brunch food.  It was unbelievable food, very French in style.  Matt had a small baguette with salami, then a foccacia pizza, then a melon pan.  Nik had a bacon and cheese croissant sandwich and a apple fritter-esque croissant-based pastry.  The name did indeed reference cannons, and purposely: the baker's name is Taihou , which can mean cannon in Japanese. In a few blocks from Bakery Cannon, we happened upon SPIC salon.  I may...

As our first year (6 months, really) draws to a close, I think it's important to display the winners of this year's worst (as in best) English sentences. Coming in third place is a very silly dialoge written by some third-years at my school.  Another ALT discovered this and thankfully showed me.  It's obvious what they're trying for but they really miss the mark: A: Hello. B: Hello.  This is H.  May I speak to T please? A: This is T. B: Great!  I'm going to prikura (sic).  Can you come to porice (sic) office at midnight? A: Yes!  Of course!  That sounds fun!  Do you want me to bring anything? B: Sure.  Could you bring some monneys (sic)? A: Yes.  Thank you for inviting me.  I'm so bad!  See you! B: You're welcome.  Fuck you! Second place is two sentences that can be taken as a pair or as stand-alone awesomeness.  These were written by one of my third year students when we had a unit on debates: A: ...

Matt and I went to Nagoya again to find me a new video camera.  Which we did, in the middle of this giant shopping mall, where stores upon stores of discounted consumer goods stack on top of each other.  I would like to state for the record that my new camera, Lady Jo, cost less than half of what it is currently retailing for on various European and American sites.  Happy me!  New dance-for-camera coming soon! Also within all the stores: Jiggy  Bat.  You can get lucky, sweet, and "beautify" all in one place!  FYI, it sells faintly Gothic, faintly punk style clothing.  Alongside Monkey Flip, there's some awesome stores in Osu.  A little more amazing are all the record stores (vinyl, of course), sound equipment stores, and vintage clothing/used American clothing stores.  We may trek back down for more shopping soon!

I'll let my intelligent readers figure this one out.

Japan knows what's up when it comes to fitness. Why look to any other source for body image? Here's the thing, though: this product is an appetite suppressant. So, what does it take to get the body you want? One word: Sacrifice.

Today I spied with my little eye a special Engrish sentence that went something like this: "the macaroon looked like a swag." Not "the macaroon is swag," but specifically "the macaroon looked like a swag." If it were a swag macaroon, I could be persuaded to agree under certain conditions. For example, according to the Urban Dictionary, swag refers to one's appearance, style, and/or carriage (from swagger). I suppose a macaroon could have a swag appearance. It could be one hella cool, super stylish macaroon, for all I know. However, while this may be what the sentence is going for, it is not what it achieves. I scoured the definitions of swag looking for what I thought was the perfect interpretation of its usage in this sentence. Other urban definitions of swag include: -Free merch given away at concerts for the sole purpose of promotion, not profit -An approximation or educated guess (acronym of "scientific wild-assed guesses) -Stolen prope...

Yet another hair salon in the great Gifu. By the way, kuma means "bear."

The first thing to know about Japan is it's quite a lot like America, but in less space. Gifu reminds me of Colorado because of the mountains, Florida because of the humidity, and Ohio because of the fields. The majesty of those three giant states can be found within one city in Japan, and that's just the way it goes. My school is located in what could be called a suburb, and just 10 minutes south of that Matt's school is located in miles of rice fields that gorgeous cranes and herons occupy, such as the one to the left. The second thing to know is Japan makes better soda than America, at least that which I've tried so far. The can to the right is a great Lemon soda that is full of lemons and vitamin C, and not much else. What it says on the can is also a special treat. Oh, and the desserts are fantastic. This is a maccha (green tea) ice cream, red bean, dango (rice dumpling), and vanilla ice cream dessert from DENNY'S. Yes, that's rig...

Matt here. So for some reason Japan thinks English should be on everything, despite having two alphabets and thousands of ideograms of their own. In much the same way that Western idiots tattoo themselves with kanji they think say WARRIOR OF PEACE but actually read FLAT COMBUSTION CONCERN, the Japanese put nonsense phrases on their signs that ramble on about how THE STYLE WHICH IS UNCOVERED IS BEST or whatever because they think the presence of English adds gravitas. There is a photoblog devoted to it called Engrish (the only slightly racist moniker for this phenomenon) that you can check out. We thought we might keep a running tally of some of the best examples we run across in our travels. So let's start with this, shall we? FUN ENGLISH NAMES Crunky Nude Balls: your new favorite snack food Dog Torimming: a pet grooming place Spic Salon: a hair salon chain (ouch, huh?) Rough Unity: oddly enough, a car place motto Hard\Parts: display title at a discount book/dv...