I am hardcore

So we've finally begun practicing Aikido again. You can see a quick snapshot of the dojo to the right here. We're attending classes at the dojo where Aikido was founded, Aikido no Hombun in Shinjuku. Since Madoka works in a Japanese office where long overtime is tacitly required the evening class is not a viable option for us. Enter the viable option.

In order to attend class we have to go to the morning class. The morning class runs from 7am-8am. The trip from where we live (Musashi Sakai) to the dojo (Shinjuku) takes a bit less than an hour and a half between walking to and from stations and the train rides themselves. This means that the two of us are now getting up at 5am every weekday to attend class. It is completely worth it though. Both of us are already feeling much better to finally be practicing again.

Haba Nero

You've gotta love a snack with a story. Haba Nero over there started out as a fiery youth. Unfortunately for the world, no other flavors wanted to date him. This created such anger that he vowed to take his revenge. Enter Haba Nero senior, whose spicy hotness is dedicated to destroying the world that has not appreciated him. There are ads for Haba Nero all over the trains in Tokyo which lay out his tragic tale of woe. The snacks are pretty good too.

I got a kick out of this

On the train home from Kichijoji the song "Memphis Train" came up on my iPod. I got quite a kick out of this as of all the trains in all the world I was probably on the least Memphis-ish of the bunch.

Bathrooms

A while ago I said I'd cover bathrooms. Well, here it is. First the bath.


We have a gas water heater. To turn it on you have to turn on the gas flow (the little black knob of the far left), light the pilot (the big white knob on the left to 1) and once the pilot is lit you have two choices. Turning the knob to 2 causes the water coming from the shower head or the faucet to be hot. Turning the knob to 3 reheats the water in the tub. It's common to leave bathwater standing for a few days with the cover on it reheating as needed. As a further bonus this water heater also heats the water in the kitchen sink.


If you've never used gas you may not be familiar with the trickeries of pilot lights. They don't like to stay lit, particularly when it's cold. They're also really hard to see. Much swearing goes on while crouched, shivering, holding a towel over my head to block the sun and trying to light the pilot for the twentieth time. It can take upwards of five minutes on its very stubborn days.


Ok, now the toilet. By Japanese standards we have a very plain toilet. For the goods on the fancy ones you should check out this article. The seat and all are pretty standard fare. Up top though, things are a bit odd. The two things you should notice are the flushing mechanism and the sink. The flushing mechanism can be turned in one of two directions. Your options are 大-dai (big) and 小-shou (small). They refer to the size of the flush and their purpose should be obvious. If you ever intend to come to Japan I highly recommend you remember this to save yourself a few moments of uncomfortable confusion.


The faucet is actually a pretty cool idea. The clean water which refills the cistern is routed through a faucet and sink so you can wash your hands. Much better than hooking up an independent sink. As you've noticed the toilet and bathing areas are in different rooms. This makes perfect sense as only a filthy animal would bathe itself in the same place that it defecates. Oh, wait...

Homework

So I've finally begun Japanese classes which naturally entails homework. Copying my vocabulary from the book helps me get a handle on the words as well as work on my reading and writing. Learning a new language is very interesting because it draws on some long gone memories. I can suddenly remember stuff that I haven't thought about in over 20 years. Sounding out words one letter at a time. Checking and rechecking to see how a letter is drawn. Not how a word is spelled mind you, but the letters themselves.

It's all very frustrating and entirely worthwhile. I can't say that I'm enjoying it yet, but I am glad to finally be underway.

First trip to KFC

So we finally hit a KFC. This is the one right next to the south exit of the Shinjuku station. The cigarettes are there to provide scale, although like most restaurants in Japan there is a smoking section. It wasn't bad, but not as good as the ones in the US or as good as most Japanese fare. I think I'll stick to rice and miso for breakfast.

I'm back!

After a three month hiatus I am posting again. You may ask yourself what could break me of my blog-sloth? The answer is a cultural phenomenon here in Japan known as Hard Gay Man. This link is to a TV show where Hard Gay Man invades the corporate headquaters of Yahoo Japan. This is just too surreal to let slide, hence the post on it. For reference, 28,500 yen is "ni man ha sen yen", which is about 250 dollars. That will come in handy when you get to the part about the auction.