Random crap.
On the chalkboard outside of a bar near one of the schools I work at, this big drawing of Jiji from Kiki’s Delivery Service welcomes customers. This is one of the many things you’ll never see in the United States. I can’t imagine anything as cute and charming at a bar where I am from, nor even a chalkboard, really.
Last month, our daughter Ulan visited Kyoto for her 3rd year JHS school trip and had a great time. It was her first time away from her parents, so it was a big deal. It made me want to look at photos of Kyoto the last time I ever visited there. When Mayu and I had been married for less than two months, we visited Kyoto in May 2001. I cannot remember where this photo was taken in Kyoto, but I just thought that this is a cute glance over the shoulder picture.
This is too funny. Mayu and I were at the drug store and found these bras with the ridiculous ENGRISH descriptions. We had a good laugh. People in Japan generally don’t understand English, and those responsible for the packaging of these items obviously do not either. Let’s start with the night time bra.
“Bust care while sleeping. Keep bust and side meat down.”
I’m sorry… what? Side meat? Keep it down? No, keep it in the fridge. That’s tomorrow’s dinner.
“This bra is just put on and a fat of a side and back is pulled.”
Well yeah, so you say it’s just put on, right? But that’s when it gets complicated. “A fat of a side?” Who are you calling fat? And your back is pulled? What’s going on again? I’m confused now.
This is what happens when you use a foreign language for decoration. Especially when you use Google Translate or something because you don’t know the language. There are stories like that one tattoo artist who was tattooing “spicy tofu” onto vapid people who didn’t know crap about Chinese characters but wanted to get permanently tattooed because they are vacuous trendies. Guys like that are heroes as far as I care.
Crap. We’re doomed. So in the past few years, these robot waiters have proliferated here in Japan. With all this talk of AI, maybe it’s only a matter of time before these become self aware and decide to revolt against humans.
So the Chinese restaurant chain Bamiyan (owned by the Gusto/Skylark group which also owns the Yume-An Japanese restaurant chain) has this completely FAWESOME Taiwanese fry bread topped with vanilla ice cream and smothered in honey, and it reminds me of the sopapillas back home in Arizona I miss so much (which can only be found in Arizona and New Mexico). Ulan and I discovered this on their dessert menu in April and holy crap, I just want to eat that every week now.
What scares me is this robot that served us. It’s like a cross between a Dalek from Doctor Who and R2-D2 from Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (back when Star Wars was cool).
I kept expecting it to exclaim, “EXTERMINATE!” Every time it came to our table, I tell Ulan, “Ohmygosh, it’s come back to kill us again!” But really if you think of it, how delightful it would be to be murdered by such an adorable robot. It even has a cute face and what resembles cat ears. How sweet.
But just think… once these robot servers become more advanced, we’ll have to face something more frightening. This man in the picture above didn’t leave a good enough tip, so now his robot waiter is murdering him to death in the parking lot. The man is obviously not having a good day. Of course, this won’t be a problem here in Japan since there is no tipping, but who knows what the future has in store?
And of course, we ordered milk tea boba drinks (called “tapioca” drinks here in Japan, despite these actually not being tapioca). Ulan loves these, and unfortunately the Mini Stop convenience stores no longer serve boba drinks and it sucks. But at least Bamiyan serves them. Happy Ulan is happy.
This bizarre plastic model kit by Imai comes from the days when Japan blatantly plagiarized stuff. Here is the “Command Robot VR-1” kit from their “Star Command” series, also known as “Nazi R2-D2.” I’ve actually seen this kit in person (at an IPMS show in Phoenix) and it comes with swastika decals. Sieg heil, you overweight glob of grease.
Today I took the day off to spend with my daughter. Every year we do a father/daughter picnic under the cherry blossoms (sakura) for flower viewing (o-hanami). We went to Family Mart to buy sandwiches and walked to the small river lined with cherry trees. A pleasant pedestrian path runs alongside, with the blossoms overhead. We had a picnic in the gazebo there. When the wind picked up, it would shower flower petals on us as we walked along the river. It was a beautiful day.
Just over a month ago, I finally bought a small floor sofa for our apartment’s living room. In Japan, these floor sofas are popular since they do not take up so much space. They have no legs and just sit flat on the floor. I’ve wanted to get one for many years, and I am glad that I finally bought one.
I was out shopping with Mayu when I bought it, and it took up the entire back seat of the car. Mayu had to sit in the front seat, and it was the first time she sat in the front seat in nearly 4 years. She’s suffered PTSD ever since she was hit by a car in April 2019, and sitting in the front seat with a wide view of the road ahead makes her very uncomfortable. She was able to sit in front with me like she used to do, and it made me happy. It was a milestone, like an Xbox achievement unlocked.
Ulan particularly loves the sofa. Here she is wearing her snuggly jammies, playing her 3DS.
Sofas are perfect for snuggly time.
Tonight I was very moved! It was the last night for the adult English class, at the end of the 15 weeks of lessons we’ve had together. Miho-san is a quiet woman who did not speak English much, but she became very interested in learning about my incredible love story, of how I came to fall in love with my pen pal Mayu and married her. She was very moved with how I was a shy nerd/otaku type who married his Japanese pen pal.
Miho-san said that she’s just been preoccupied with raising her children to adulthood that she never thought much about having a hobby, but she said that I helped inspire her to reach back to her old hobby of drawing anime/manga characters. She’d shown me a beautiful picture of Maetel she’d drawn a long time ago. For me tonight, she gave me a booklet with two sketches of Minmay from Macross and Lum from Urusei Yatsura. I was so happy and almost started to cry! Miho-san is an excellent artist! Thank you, Miho-san. These sketches are my new treasures.
This is a photo I took of a watercolor painting of Maetel that Miho-san showed me. She is rather talented.
Before:
After:
It was bound to happen eventually. The Sega World in my small town is finally being rebranded as Gigo. The iconic Sonic sign is in the process of being replaced and you can already see the Gigo sign above the door. Granted, nothing is changing except the name, but still, Sega has divested their arcade management division. You can read about this here:
I asked the manager if they were going to toss out the Sega flags, and he said no. He said that several others asked about the flags already, but he said that they will remain as decorations. The staff’s uniforms still say “Sega” on their backs. This rug is still in the front doorway.
I’d love to have a brand new rug like this in my home. I’m sure the female spouse unit would protest, though.
Ever been to Jungle in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles? Here is the original Jungle in Osaka, which became famous for being a laserdisc-selling powerhouse in the ’90s. This pic is from 2001. It has since relocated.