Freddy Got Fingered

I just watched this movie. Wow.

I will get to the Kobe leg of the trip soon, but first a couple pictures.


It's not a very good picture, but the box had cookies from Nara in it. I gave most of the cookies away to one of my favorite schools, and they gave me some crepes that they'd made that day, which was really awesome. That thing in the plastic wrap was a crepe that had chocolate and banana and whatnot in it. Delicious.


Pickled daikon. I made that. It's yellow because of food coloring. I'm waiting on some more that should turn out blue-green. Awesome.

Kyoto Part 1

I'm going to split up the Kyoto pics into two parts because Kyoto is pretty huge and also the city in Japan with the most historic temples and shrines. Kyoto, 京都, is blessed with so much stuff partially due to the fact that it didn't get firebombed during WWII. It is also one of the former capitols of Japan, back in the Heian period, which, as we all know, predates the Edo period, at the start of which, Tokugawa Ieyasu moved the capitol to the wee town of Edo, 江戸, now known as Tokyo, 東京. Kyoto means "capitol city," while Tokyo means "east capitol." Inventive.


This is the torii gate to some shrine. Shrines, which are Shinto, generally have gates like this, whereas temples, which are Buddhist, do not. Shinto (actually a double o), 神道, meaning "god way" is the native religion of Japan. It's one of the few folk religions to still be around today. There's a bit of ancestor worship and a lot of throwing coins into boxes and buying trinkets. Buddhism, or Bukkyo (another double o), 仏教, is obviously not native to Japan, but has been around for a long time, having made the trip from India via China in some century I'm not willing to look up. Since Buddhism doesn't necessarily have a set pantheon, the Japanese people just took the gods they already had and called them Buddhas, and that's how you get the mix of religions that most Japanese people sort of follow. That first character means "Buddha," if you are looking for a sweet kanji to tattoo on yourself, plus, it's only 4 strokes, which would probably be good, since I imagine tattoos hurt a bit. If you don't mind the pain, I'd suggest getting these tattooed on you: 闖入者, meaning "intruder," at only 27 strokes. If you prefer, there's always giraffe, 麒麟, at a mere 43 strokes. But, I digress.


Now, there's a temple. This one's called chion'in, 知恩院. It is pretty huge. Actually, that is just the front gate.


The walk up to the temple compound. There was a hilarious little kid struggling to get up as his legs were too small to let him just walk up the steps.


That's the main building. There were some other buildings, but I don't have pictures of those. While we were there, the monks started doing this chanting and marching thing, which seemed to be a big deal, and then the place closed, so we had to leave.


This was just a Bar Ber's shop. Oh, Japan.

Reviews of Some More Stuff

I watched a few movies recently, so I thought I'd make a few comments.

Knocked Up - This was pretty funny. I was worried that it might not be because it seemed that the people who were praising it were the same people who thought that 40 Year Old Virgin was amazing, when I thought it was mediocre and overrated. But, I digress. It was pretty good.

Justice League: The New Frontier - I didn't know this existed till I stumbled upon it the other day. It's from Bruce Timm, the same guy who brought us the Superman, Batman, and Justice League series. It's got different voices and character designs than the Justice League show, but it's pretty excellent. It takes place in the fifties and focuses on the Green Lantern, Hal Jordan this time. A lot of minor characters that DC fans will recognize show up, so that is neat. If you don't like Justice League, well, too bad.

Flight of the Living Dead: Outbreak on a Plane - I saw 28 Days Later earlier this year, and was impressed, but I have to say this may be the best zombie movie I have ever seen. Just plain excellent if you like stupid zombie movies.

A Clockwork Orange - Definitely worth a viddy, if you don't mind a bit of the old ultraviolence.

Futurama: Bender's Big Score - If you are a fan of Futurama, you will enjoy this. And if you aren't, what's wrong with you? It starts out a little slow, but it quickly picks up, and followers of the show will be delighted by all the references to continuing plot points. This one had me ROFL. Do it for the lulz.

Sicko - I didn't finish this because it was too depressing. Come on, America. How can you be so stupid? Der Der...free market will fix it...VOTE RON PAUL! CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT THE TRUTH ABOUT 9/11 RON PAUL RON PAUL RON PAUL!!!!

The Curry Rice I Made Yesterday - Almost too good. I am like a machine designed for the sole purpose of eating curry rice.

Kirin Grand Ale - Easily top 5 beers I have had here.

Teriyaki/Mayo/Beef flavored chips - How could this not be good?

Nara

After a couple days in Osaka, we headed to the nearby historical city Nara. Actually, we stayed in a nearby city called Tenri, which actually turned out to be sweet.

This is part of a temple complex in Nara park. Nara park has almost all the sights in Nara, so it is a nice place to sightsee for a day.


This was the entrance to some shrine that may or may not have been in Nara. I don't remember it specifically, but it was a nice picture.

A five story pagoda thing in Nara.


Shrines are all over in Nara park. Here's a wee one.

The daibutsu hall. Daibutsu means "big buddha."


The daibutsu itself. You sort of have to see it in person to understand how it is huge. It's not normally sideways like this, either.



This guy was in the daibutsu hall. He's one of the buddha's guardians or something.
A view of Nara seen from a temple on a hill. Pretty neat.


My favorite site in Nara. Ris feeding one of the deer that are allowed to roam all over Nara park. There are vendors throughout the park selling Deer Sembei, or rice crackers, so you can feed them.


Who's that trying to steal my girl? Colonel Santa, in front of a KFC.


Persimmon-leaf wrapped sushi, a Nara specialty. Delicious.

That's all for Nara. It was pretty great. I know the update is sort of short, but my hands are cold, so it is hard to type, and I am currently "watching" the abysmal "Across the Universe."

Osaka

I said I'd get around to detailing that trip, so here goes. The first few days, we were in Osaka (It's actually a double "o" sound), or 大阪, as the Japanese write it. That means "big slope," but of the few Japanese folks I've asked about it, none actually knew what the second kanji was. I found out that they don't know because it is the old way of writing that character, which is now usually written 坂. So there's your history lesson.

Osaka is famous for not a whole lot, apparently. It sort of plays second fiddle to Tokyo, being historically just a big port town that was never capitol or anything. It does have a neat castle, though, creatively called Osaka Castle. So here are some pictures of that, from a distance.


Sorry that they are sideways, but apparently this computer just likes to ask whether you'd like to save changes or not without actually doing it, so it is unavoidable. The castle was pretty nice to see, but I didn't really feel like paying to see the museum inside as it was the second museum of the day and we were both already pretty tired.


This cat was just sitting near the castle and refused to pay any attention to Ris's mewling for it. She did this in spite of the fact that the last time she tried to call a cat like that, it just scratched her. Also, that cat had three legs. This one had all four, but wouldn't use them for anything.


I remember reading a science fiction story, I think it was 2001, but I'm not sure, in which a traveler from Earth ended up in some sort of alien-built fascimile of a human house, and there being things like cereal boxes, that were perfectly recreated, but they only contained some weird kind of blue stuff because the aliens knew what things looked like from broadcasts, but didn't know any of the stuff that they couldn't see, and, not being humans, could only guess at things like what food should look like.

I think that is what happened here. I think aliens were trying to build some kind of art here, no doubt in some scheme to evolve us, but really didn't get it and just kind of tried to imitate what they could without understanding aesthetics at all. This was in the park that contained the museum of ethnology, which Ris wanted to see, and which turned out to be pretty excellent, as museums go. In fact, I was still busy getting edumacated when she wanted to leave.
A couple days after we left Osaka, there was supposed to be some sort of Christmas celebration at the park, so they were setting up decorations like the amusing ones above.

Not quite, but good attempt, Japan.

There was some sort of abandoned fairground or something across from the park we went to. I think you could still go to it, but it seemed to be closed while we were there. This is taken from the monorail station we went through to get to the park. The public transportation in Osaka is pretty good, but not as good as that in Tokyo. Osaka basically requires you to take the subway most places instead of JR, which is just slightly more expensive. But whatever.


Outside our hotel. Weird.


Behold Shinsaibashi, or at least part of it, I think. This picture was taken a while ago. Shinsaibashi, 心斎橋, is a long shopping arcade/road in Osaka that has crazy lights and all. If you've ever been to similar areas in Tokyo, you know what is up, then. It gets absurdly crowded in the evening, and once everything starts closing, the subways get packed like sardines. That was uncomfortable.


Shinsaibashi intersects with Dotombori, 道頓堀, which is packed with eating places and is just as crazy. The local treats in Osaka are okonomiyaki, a pancake like dish containing cabbage and meat, along with whatever else you want to throw in, and takoyaki, which are basically a weird fried doughball with bits of octopus in it. Actually, there are two styles of okonomiyaki, Osaka- and Hiroshima-styles, with Hiroshima style using a lot more cabbage. I prefer Hiroshima style, but whatever floats your boat. So, we had some okonomiyaki one night and it was alright.

That's about it for Osaka. After that, we headed to Nara, which is pretty close and a much more historical city. So, there will be an update on that at some point. For now, enjoy this picture of a premium wheat beer I picked up today in Matsue while shopping for rice.

Eiga

I just got on here to reply to a comment, but I figured I might as well post a couple thoughts about some movies I watched.

Blades of Glory - This movie lacks the usual Will Ferrell charm, unlike that Ricky Bobby one which I forgot the name of.

Aliens vs. Predator Requiem - Imagine a fairly standard slasher movie, but then turn down the brightness in your head so that you can't actually see any of the action. That is pretty much this movie.

Baroque Cycle

I wanted to mention that while on vacation I got away from reading it, but I started again, and it is pretty great. I am talking about Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, specifically, Quicksilver. It deals with the scientific revolution, and people like Newton and Hooke are characters. It's interesting to see how people can make guesses about the world that can seem so stupid because they are clearly wrong but make perfect sense given what they can observe and what they know, which isn't very much. It makes you think how you can actually learn all the stuff they teach in science class if you don't have other people's work to just read. I'm not that far into it yet, but so far it is great, like I said. The only complaint I really have is that it's not as good as Cryptonomicon yet because it doesn't ramble into explanations as much, but focuses a lot on the politics of the day instead of the science. I suppose that's just my preference, but I'd like to get better explanations of what the characters are trying to learn. Shucks.

Long Trip

I know it's been a long time.　　I was on a trip basically the whole time with the RZA,　who is totally awesome and going to Senegal in a couple months. I'll put up a link to her new blog soon, but I don't remember the her new blog soon, but I don't remember the address off the top of my head.

We started out in Osaka, then went to Nara, then Kyoto, then Kobe, then Takamatsu, then Okayama before returning to my quaint little mountain village for a couple of days. Then it was back to Osaka to see her off. :-( Only an emoticon can do that justice.

I'll detail more of the stuff, which I probably should more of the stuff, which I probably should have been doing along the way, but who wants to do that when you have neat stuff to see and someone to see it with? Today I'm at work and the pictures are on my home computer, so it will have to wait. Later.