Voyage Junkie

Matt here. This is my first post under this name, so I'll try to make it a good one. Yoroshiku onegai shimasu! On Friday (2/18) I secured a rare day off work to head up to Yokohama and take an entrance exam for the Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies. If I get in, I'll leave with full fluency (level 1 Japanese Language Proficiency Test certification), as well as a sure spot in a PhD program. I'll hear in a month how I did. So that's the business part of the post out of the way. I took the shinkansen up from Nagoya again, and I planned to study the whole way. However, when the sweet college student next to me nearly spilled the opera score she was preparing into my lap, we struck up a conversation and I wound up practicing my Japanese for a couple hours the old-fashioned way: by talking with a native. I felt pretty well prepared after that. From Shin-Yokohama station I took a couple different lines down to Minatomirai, Yokohama Harbor, w...

My kyoto-sensei  gave me two tickets to a modern art exhibit featuring Japanese artists in Nagoya, so Matt and I headed to the city a few weekends ago to see what it was like.  The exhibit was fairly large, covering an entire floor of an impressively large building.  First we visited a room that held many modern multi-media pieces including sculptures, screens, felt and acrylic paintings, etc.  It was a small room and relatively crowded, so I did not get to spend as much time standing in one place in front of the towering works of genius as I would have liked, but I fixed that problem by making a few cycles around the room.  I was very impressed by the use of color and space in most of the works.  Many of them were attempting to create works that were busier by far than any Western artist would even think about doing (in today's minimalist postmodern era).  Some succeeded and some did not, but in each case I admired the courage it took to create ...

As promised, here's more French in Japan!  This post  showcases two of the many signs I've seen in this country featuring French as the prominent, and often only, language of choice.  Never mind that most people in this country don't speak one word of French; it's still all over the signs.  I wonder if they don't understand what the signs mean at all, or if there's a basic cultural understanding of the parts that show up in these signs.  The first sign here is the easier of the two, by far.  It's for a beauty salon, which is evident with the word "beauty" if you couldn't tell by "pur" (pure).  "Norika" is the name of the person who owns the salon.  "C'est vous pour  ê tre le plus jolie" literally means something like "it is you for to be the most beautiful."  I think what they want to get across is that it is up to you to be the most beautiful you can be, and if you desire to be the most beautiful ...

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!

Lovely French-inspired desserts, from L-R: egg pudding, strawberry-pistachio meringues, maple bar, hazelnut meringues.  All GF but the maple bar.    I'll definitely post more on French things soon... I'm amassing quite a collection of French signage that needs to be documented.  For now, have fun with this lovely spread of treats we purchased from a French-themed pâtisserie and chocolatier that is down the street from our house.  Everything is incredibly delicious and artfully made.  At the shop you can watch the bakers while you eat fresh croissants and drink coffee, if you like.  It's pretty intense. If you can't read the wrappers, here's what they say. Le Cerisier d'amour, depuis 1976, La pâtisserie que profite de la matiere delicieuse. The Cherry tree of love, since 1976, The pastry that takes advantage of the delicious matter. They probably mean to say, "The pastry that benefits from delicious ingredients."  As for "cherry tree of ...

My friends, L-R around the circle: Rachael, me, Matt, Sayaka, Laura, Mari, Asami, Kacey, and Saya. On January 29th I celebrated my first Japanese birthday!  It was a great time.  I went out with a bunch of friends to our favorite Izakaya (Japanese-style bar).  We ordered delicious food, including pizza chicken skewers and ice cream with warm sweet potato and caramel sauce.  I tried some strawberry plum wine and light plum wine, the latter of which I enjoyed a bit more.  After dinner we went and sang a ton of bad karaoke, including American, Japanese, and Korean pop songs.  What can I say?  We're a multi-cultural crowd, which apparently means we're equal-opportunity for awful music. Here's Matt with Sayaka, an English teacher at his main school (Nagamori Minami).  It was her birthday on January 21st, so the party was 1/4 for her! To the right, Rachael and I begin to look like sisters!  Her birthday was January 10th, so 1/4 of the par...

Apparently Panasonic got a facebook post from a girl who in Bahrain who wanted her brother to see snow.  So they wrapped a 70-quart snowman in a new insulation called U-Vacua, and shipped it!  It traveled 5,314 miles and 40 hours and arrived in mint condition.  Check the video!  And check the link  for a more descriptive article on the kids and the process.