Aino Minako-chan

Things I Discovered On My Summer Vacation

1. One can indeed get sick of ham, cheese, and bread.
After three days in Paris and one too many delicious delicious sandwich, I suddenly discovered that I was utterly sick of the combination. Honestly, if I had one more slice of ham, I thought I was going to scream. For dinner that last night, my mom and I went out of our way to order a plain omlette and spaghetti respectively.

2. I missed Scottish food.
This was surprising to me, since I dislike many "traditional" Scottish foods, like blood pudding or haggis or fry-ups, but I love meat pies and pasties and beans and empire biscuits and leek soups, so I was in heaven. Plus, my uncle (a former butcher) makes a to-die-for lamb stew. Seriously, it was a good few days in Glasgow.

3. My cousin got divorced.
I totally didn't know until my aunt started talking about his new girlfriend, which made me think that she was talking about someone else with the same name for three-fourths of the conversation. It was seriously confusing. No one tells me anything! (Note to kinomakoto : Not R, the one you know; I mean R's oldest brother. R has two little girls btw who are ADORABLE. The older one, age 2, is a doll who speaks with R's strong Glaswegian accent; it's hysterical.)

4. My grandpa has some great war stories.
Like, he told us this one about his earliest memory, which involved him in hospital when he was 3 with scarlet fever, during WWI, watching from the balcony of the hospital as lights lit up the sky to search for bomb-carrying airships (zeppelins, because they didn't use bomber planes in WWI). Or how he mainly worked on convoy rescue ships, which, despite the tendancy to run into German submarines, was the best job (he said) because the ships had lots of extra room and extra supplies since they needed to be ready to take aboard survivors. Or his story about manning a ship to carry a bunch of Americans and their sekrit sekrit package to Italy while being hunted down by more German subs.

That was a really interesting story: He said that he never did find out what they were carrying, but that the Americans they were with weren't military, as the only real military aboard were he and his fellow British gunners; he assumed that the Americans were CIA or something. (I would think that the captain and main crew would have been British military as well, but they apparently weren't; Grandpa was the highest-ranking military member when they arrived in Italy for the debriefing. Maybe they loaned gunners to the merchant marines?) Grandpa said that they were followed by an American naval ship, and he was always amused because he said that the American sailors never seemed to go below deck; there were always people lounging around or even sleeping above deck. But whatever they were carrying, the Germans apparently got wind of it and started submarine attacks. Grandpa said that one night, there was a gigantic explosion, but he didn't know what had happened until the next morning when he realized that the American ship was simply gone.

When they arrived in Italy and unloaded the sekrit sekrit cargo, he said that he and his fellow gunners went to a debriefing with the American military in which he was the highest-ranking military officer and therefore had to deal with them the most. One American military guy got on their cases for looking so untidy and unprofessional, saying that they all looked like they hadn't slept for days, to which my Grandpa replied, "Well, that's because we haven't. Because of the submarines." At which point an apparently higher-ranking American military officer chewed out the first guy for giving my Grandpa and his men crap, and he ordered them to have a shower and some sleep before they came back. Grandpa said that the first American military guy never apologized, but later on, the guy did take a car and drive Grandpa and his fellow gunners to visit Pompei for a few hours, so he supposed that was the guy's way of saying "Sorry I was an ass."

5. You can remove the seatbelts from airplane seats.
Okay, so I had an adventure getting back to Japan... First, my luggage was temporarily misplaced. I had two connections on the way back to Tokyo. My first flight was running late, but I managed to make the connection. Unfortunately, my bag did not. Luckily, I had a long layover, it was a short flight, and there was one more flight that night, so my bags made it in time for the last leg. Then, on the plane to Tokyo, I went to buckle up... only both sides of the buckle were firmly attached on one side. The other side, normally the side with the adjustable strap, was reduced to just a strap. I blinked at it for a while, tried to figure out if I could thread the buckle back onto the strap, and just called a flight attendant. She and another flight attendant discussed it for a bit, and since I really didn't want to move from my nice aisle seat into the only other available seat (a middle seat), the flight attendants simply decided to replace the seat belt by removing the entire thing. It involved shoving one part back a bit and a lot of yanking, but it turns out that the seat belts are basically just hooked onto a bar with a spring-loaded latch. It doesn't come off EASILY (seriously, they were yanking the hell out of the seat in confusion, and I ended up with a twisted strap because they were having trouble installing the new belt right-side-up before the plane took off), but it can be done. You learn something new every day!

Movies Seen On My Summer Vacation
1. Star Trek
Yes, there is nothing better than Star Trek in its full glory on a 7-inch in-flight screen. (lol) But it was fun and I enjoyed it. Also, my mother apparently thought that the Sulu fencing joke (you know, when Kirk goes "What kind of fighting do you do" and Sulu goes "Fencing") was HILAROUS, and it always cracks me up to discover what parts of movies my mommy likes the best. No really, she couldn't stop laughing. It was cute. ^_^

2. The Time-Traveler's Wife
The logic doesn't make a huge amount of sense, and it's slightly creepy when you really think about how he visited his wife as a child, but overall I quite enjoyed the movie. It was just a tear-jerking, sweet romance with a sci-fi twist. Now, to read the book!

I've been surprisingly busy the past two weeks or so. I'm leaving this weekend for a trip to Greece with kinomakoto, and I'm super excited. My laundry isn't quite done and my apartment probably won't get cleaned before I go, but I'm basically ready. Hurray! Excitement!

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A few weeks ago, I was watching one of the millions of animal related TV shows in Japan, and they showed an edited version of a clip known as ( Battle at Kruger. )

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Before Crisis, the Final Fantasy VII cell phone game, just came out for my current model of cell phone, so I said "What the hell!" and I downloaded it. ( Cut for those who don't really care. ^_^ )

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( Cut for those who actually care about my previous poll... )

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( And in completely random news... )

Well, my family is gone, I'm back from visiting

kinomakoto, and I'm leaving again for Japan in a few days. How to sum up the holidays with my family? Busy, loud, incredibly fun. The kids are great, but they're related to me, so we already know that. ^_^ They seemed to enjoy the presents I got them for Christmas (thank goodness), and I got lots of DVDs and things that I had wanted. Hurray! (I also got some extra LJ time from lenariel... Thank you! *^_^* Want, er, a translation or something?)

New Year's with Mako-chan was fun, especially when we found out that the Senshi Gakuen had been hacked to become a portal site for a prescription drug company. We got it fixed and didn't lose anything, but still, that's bad. (BTW, thanks to everyone who wrote or left a message on LJ. Who knows when we would have noticed if left to our own devices.) Therefore, I have decided to make a few New Year's resolutions after all:

 

1. Update SG.com
   The only thing I've updated recently has been, well, my Tokimeki Memorial page, so this year I vow to update some of my old obsessions, like my V6 and translation pages. And maybe add some more manga reviews. Because everyone deserves to know when I'm horrified by New York, New York.
2. Study Japanese
   Because I want to take the Level 1 proficiency exam this year. Actually, that means the real resolution should be:
3. Don't miss the cut-off date for the exam
   That was technically my problem this year. I think I need to sign up by August.
4. Study vacation language
   Mako-chan and I are pretty much decided to visit Europe next Fall, so I want to study the local language a bit. Just so I can say things like, "Where is the bathroom?" or "Get your hand off of there, you bastard." You know. The important stuff.
5. Continue reading and excersizing
   These are two good habits that I started in 2007, so I really hope to keep it up. Good way to keep both my brain and body fit!

Anyway, hope everyone has a good 2008!!

I'm so exhausted, and I wasn't even the one on vacation.

Okay, so for two weeks, my little one-bedroom apartment was home to two girls (kinomakoto and applcheeks), five suitcases, and eventually an overflowing closet-full of treats to bring home. In quick bulletpoint form, here is how we spent the past two weeks:

• My First Comiket, which was almost shockingly uncrowded. Seriously. I should go more often.
• johnabe came over to watch the annual Kouhaku music battle on NHK. The big feature was a hysterically inappropriate performance by DJ Ozma who has, among other things, been banned from even the NHK building.
• Shopping, shopping, shopping! There were some extremely scary crowds, but also awesome deals. I spent surprisingly little money, considering that I ended up with: three small jewelry grab bags, one expensive jewelry grab bag, a sock grab bag, two clothing grab bags (each literally filled with 8-9 pieces of clothing, including jackets, dresses, and one blingy belt), one dress, and one pair of boots. Shopping!
• Eating, eating, eating! Seriously, if I never eat a parfait until Spring, it may be too soon.

But the highlight had to be a trip to Hakone and an amazing overnight stay in a ryokan with onsen. Oh, it was amazing. The room had a view of the gardens and was kept toasty warm; the onsens were just this side of scalding and felt gloriously refreshing, especially when a cool breeze kicked up outside; and then there was Maiko-san. Maiko-san was our own personal maid servant woman, and I wanted to take her home with me. Her entire job appeared to be acting cute and polite and serving food until we thought we were going to burst. Our onsen trip came with dinner and breakfast, each of which was a long, drawn out, multi-multi-MULTI course affair served to us in our rooms so that we barely had to move. At one point in time at dinner, Ringo-chan counted 20 dishes PER PERSON. The breaking point came after Maiko-san delivered the final dish, crammed carefully onto the table between us.

"Call the front desk when you're done," she informed us as we stuffed our faces with yet another piece of fish-product that was carefully formed and then carved into the shape of a flower. "I'll come back up to take away your dishes, and I'll bring up dessert."

....Dessert!?

I managed to hold my laughter until after she left the room. Breakfast was another 8 dishes or so, although I was starved like a starving woman for no reason, so I ended up stealing food from everyone else. Needless to say, I was fast asleep in a diabetic coma for most of the train ride back home.

Now I'm just sad and alone in Japan by myself. I say that, but I'm just too exhausted to go out anywhere. Holy crap, I need a day off. ^_^

I had a great little trip back to the States. I spent most of the time watching movies and participating in shopping marathons. What fun! I could write an entire, sprawling entry about how my niece and nephew are the cutest things, ever, but I'll restrain myself. (Although they are hysterical.) Little Niece was really awesome; for some reason, I get along oddly well with kids in their terrible twos. Unfortunately, she was still asleep when I left in the morning, so I didn't get to say goodbye. My sister told me that Niece got all sad and refused to let her little brother play with the stuffed Totoro doll or the Anpanman toy phone that I brought them from Japan. I find it painfully cute in a little-brother-torturing kind of way.

(Okay, one funny story about my niece and nephew. Apparently, Nephew likes sucking on Niece's toes. Niece didn't used to mind, because Nephew had no teeth and she thought it felt funny. But now, you've guessed it, teething. So instead of sucking, he tries to eat her toes. Needless to say, Niece isn't quite so amused now. She shouts "No" at him and runs away and sometimes starts sobbing because Nephew is a stubborn little dude who will crawl after you with relentless determination, even if you try fooling him by suddenly hiding or changing directions. On a slightly related note, Nephew doesn't crawl like a baby; he crawls like an army guy on his belly. His nickname at day care is "Commando". ^_^)

Anyway, as usual, I watched many movies with my mom. (My dad's not a big movie fan, so Mommy gets her movie bug out of her system with me.) We rented Wordplay and March of the Penguins. "Wordplay" was interesting and funny, although I will fully admit that I thought the participants in the crossword competition who they profiled were kind of weird. I don't really have a strong competitive spirit, never have, so I think it's weird when people actually open their mouths to say things like how little it took them to complete a puzzle, and how they can't understand why it took other people twice as long; is there something wrong with those people!? To me, that's a bit creepy. On the other hand, the segments about puzzle creation and things like that were very interesting. In the end, though, I still preferred the other word-related academic competition movie, Spellbound. The other documentary I saw, "March of the Penguins", was simply incredible. Once you see that film, you're filled with an overwhelming sense of "How the fuck are penguins still alive as a species!?!?" I mean, oh my god! All that work just for one chick!? It's just phenominal. And it's possible that I got teary-eyed once or twice. Because I'm a softy like that.

My mom and I also saw both period pieces revolving around battling magicians (which I will write about later) and Stranger than Fiction. I'm a bit sad to say that "Stranger than Fiction" disappointed me. I was sure that I would love it, and it was funny in a dry sort of way, but it was almost... too normal. When Harold goes to a shrink and keeps insisting that he's not crazy (merely hearing a voice in his head), the shrink eventually caves and refers him to a literature professor. (...why?) The literature professor, for some particular reason, doesn't think too much of Harold until he admitted that the narrator said the phrase "Little did he know...", to which the literature professor apparently concluded that it WAS someone else, seeing as the phrase was contingent on Harold not knowing something, and so how could he make up something that he didn't know? (Which is just plain stupid, because they're just WORDS and not actually contingent on the actual thought processes of a third person, but I digress.) Long story short, the movie was too normal to be a quirky Kaufman-esque comedy, and too strange to be a normal romantic comedy. It just straddled an awkward middle. Having said that, the performances were wonderful and really managed to carry the movie to a pleasent ending. An amusing movie, sure, but not the great one that I had hoped for.

So next week, I'm heading for a wee visit to see one of my sisters and then to see my parents. In preparation for said trip, I literally spent an hour in Toys R Us this weekend, desperately trying to remember how old my neice and nephew are. "Two-ish and less-than-one-ish" was the best I was able to come up with, but I later confirmed this information with my mother, and it turns out I was right. Phew! I wanted to get something that would at least somewhat Japanese-y, so I forced myself not to look at all of the cute foreign-made toys. Then I tried to weed out all the generic things, and I ended up with a stuffed Totoro for the older girl and an Anpanman cell phone thingie for the baby boy. In retrospect, the girl might not enjoy Totoro without knowing the character, and possibly would even prefer something like the Anpanman phone simply because it at least has buttons, but I was totally swindled by the parents and little child shopping in front of me.

Mom: [stopping stroller in front of stuffed animals] Hey, let's buy her a Totoro.
Dad: Cool, here you go, sweetie. [holds Totoro out to little girl]
Little girl: [big eyes] [giant smile] DAAAAAAAAA! [envelope Totoro in massive stuffing-popping hug]

I'm half convinced that they were paid actors, and just circled around the display every 20 minutes to convince unsuspecting shoppers to purchase Totoro goods. It was sooooo cute. The Anpanman cell phone should be fine. It's a "camera" phone (which means that it has a little plastic Anpanman waving on the top screen), and all little kids like bright chewable buttons, right?

FYI, Anpanman is an anime superhero who, as you may have guessed, has a giant anpan for a head. He has all sorts of bread related friends, too (Shokupanman, Currypanman, etc) but I never really knew anything else about the series. As it turns out, Anpanman fights the evil Germ people, and whenever he finds someone in trouble, he re-energizes them... by letting them eat a little bite of his head. People are actually expected to eat Anpanman. I honestly had no idea. I couldn't stop laughing when I first found out.

Minako-chan is a hyperactive but sleepy bunny, but that's what she gets for drinking a maple latte at work first thing in the morning. I'm really not used to caffeine, and never have it in the morning.
(_ _)zzzZZ

Lately, I've been busy getting ready for my week-long trip home on Saturday. Luggage to pack, luggage to send to the airport, refrigerator to clean out... I'm unexpectedly very busy. Today I woke up a little early and went to the wonderful world of Shinagawa to get a re-entry permit. I ended up getting to the immigration office about half an hour early (whoops) and I didn't really have anything to do, so I picked up forms for extending my work visa (will have to do that in a few months, so this saves me the trip) and browsed the web on my new cell phone. I really hate to see my first cell phone bill; I feel like I'm looking at the web a whole lot, but I figure that if I use my cell phone a ton the first month, I can set that as my extreme maximum and rework my payment plan based around that. There really isn't that much to do on a cell phone web browser; now that it's out of my system, I'll probably only end up using it occasionally for weather, train schedules, and the daily Inocchi blog at V6's cell phone webpage. (Yesterday's blog: "We had a hand-shaking meet-and-greet with the fans today... I can't move my arms!!!!") Anyway, I downloaded a really really pretty Reno screenshot from FFVII:AC to use as the screen for my phone. Ooooo, Reno-ness! Thank you, Square-Enix web!

I've also been busy buying Christmas presents for everyone; my parents are visiting my Canadian sister and family over Christmas, so they can bring up the presents, and shipping for my Hawaii sister (and family) and my Detroit sister (and family) will be a lot cheaper from the States. I really shouldn't complain since I'm in Japan, but really, why does all of my family live so danged far away? (lol) I get vacation, sure, but only one week a year is really useful for traveling abroad... That's more than enough for most people, but most people aren't the ones LIVING abroad. I'd tell my family to start visiting me, but considering that my sisters each have a small daughter born in the new millenium? That ain't happening. Mako-chan, I will likely never ever see your cute new My Sweet Home. Sorry. (^_^)

Anyway, since it'll be easier for me to ship presents, I decided to make this a Very Merry Lacquerware Christmas. Mommy and Daddy get a pretty lacquerware plate for display (which my mom has been dying for). My Hawaii sister gets a cute boat-shaped bowl thingie (found it at a baseball victory sale at Keio; thank you, Hanshin Tigers!). My Detroit sister gets a set of very simple black and silver plates (that couple is oddly picky when it comes to household decorating, but I'm proud to say that they should like this).

But that left my Canada sister. As I pondered what type of lacquerware good to buy them, I suddenly realized something. Their house contains one large dog, one hyperactive one, two fat cats, one hamster (who at last count is still alive after the cats ate the mouse), and a two-year-old little girl who apparently runs circles around the entire family. And there's possibly fish or birds or who knows what by now. What the hell are they going to do with lacquer? I tried desperately to think of something "Japanesey" to get them that wasn't delicate, but this is JAPAN. EVERYTHING traditional is delicate. (Or food which, frankly, would probably not taste too good if bought now for Christmas.) I finally decided on something "chirimen", which in a nutshell tends to be "cute, decorative crap made from silk crepe". You know when you see stuffed bunnies or something that look like they're made from kimonos? That's probably chirimen. As it just so happens, 2006 is apparently the year of the dog, which means that the stores are filled with are absolutely adorable dog statues, paper-mache-ish dog sculptures, and (of course) chirimen dogs. Bringing this all together, I decided to get my Canada sister a chirimen doggie to compliment her animal-filled house. It's basically a high-quality stuffed animal, so it won't break and likely won't be (too) harmed if occasionally chewed on by any member of the household. Plus, since it's a decoration specifically for the year of the dog, I can tell her not to worry if it busts at its seams in a few months. "It's only good for 2006 anyway; no problems!"

Ironically, however, if I end up buying the chirimen doggie that I like, it'll end up being the most expensive gift of the Christmas season, which is why I haven't bought it yet. On one hand, I'm doing pretty well budget-wise, and the expensive doggie looks a whole lot better than the little, relatively inexpensive ones (which all tend to look like cats, for reasons that I don't quite understand). On the other hand, that's a lot to pay for a stuffed doggie, no matter how cute. Hmmm....