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I went to Hump Tour (which I will now try to explain to you as politely as possible)!

May 5th, 2014

Head’s up: I’m going to do the best I can to be as socially acceptable as I can, but maybe you shouldn’t read this at work. I don’t know what kind of job you have. Maybe you have the kind of job where you can do whatever the hell you want. I just don’t want to get into trouble if your work would deem this inappropriate. ‘Nuff said. Moving on.

While I was in Japan I would sporadically check my email on computers where the keyboards had some recognizable letters, but mostly not so much with that, so I would vaguely hen-peck my way across the keys in the hopes that I was hitting the right ones. This made checking my email a bit of an uphill battle, so I skimmed them for words like “emergency / flood / fire / catastrophe / no survivors” and as long as none of those popped up I felt pretty good. I saw an email from Snorth that said something along the lines of “You wanna do a thing three months from now with Dan Savage?” I knew that I didn’t have any plans in three months and I like doing things, so I said yes and tried to remember that I made plans for late April. Two weeks before the end of April I finally got around to asking Snorth, “What did I agree to go to in two weeks?” and Snorth said, “Oh, Dan Savage hosts a sex-positive film festival in the Northwest every year since the mid-2000s and for the first time it’s coming to New York and we’re gonna go see it.” It took me a minute but eventually it sunk it. “We’re going to see artsy porn, is that what you’re saying?” And Snorth said, “Yes, you and me and my husband are going to see amateur porn curated by Dan Savage in a theater with other people at 4:00 in the afternoon two Saturdays from now.” “Well, alright then,” I said.

First, who is Dan Savage. He’s probably most well-known for answering questions on a self-help column focusing on sex and romance issues called Savage Love. He is also well-known for starting the It Gets Better Project, where adults, both homosexual and not, film videos where they tell kids it’s not worth killing yourself because of bullying. I have found him to be arrogant at times so I am not a big fan, but Snorth likes him a great deal so she was excited to go see him. The film festival is called Hump Tour, and here’s a small snapshot of what it entails.

Since 2005 the HUMP! Film Festival has challenged ordinary people from all over the Pacific Northwest to become temporary, weekend porn stars-by making their very own five-minute dirty movies for a chance to win big cash prizes! And they did not disappoint! The resulting short films run the gamut of sexual styles: straight, gay, lesbian, transgender… every color in the sexual rainbow… and some we never knew existed. HUMP! films are funny, thought-provoking, sad, artistic, outrageous, and almost overwhelmingly sexy – because they’re real. And they’re real because they were created and performed by sex-positive people, just like YOU. That’s why we’re bringing the very best of HUMP! to your town! See 20 of the hottest HUMP films in action… they’ll make you laugh, squeal, and marvel at the broad (and creative) range of human sexuality. It’s the HUMP! Tour 2014!

Saturday rolled around and I met Snorth outside The Village East Cinema at about 3:00 (it was general admission and I wanted a good seat). As we rolled in the people taking tickets at the door told us Dan Savage would be answering any questions we might have, so if we did have any questions we should write them on the index cards provided. It occurred to me that I didn’t have any questions before the movies but I bet I would have A WHOLE LOT afterwards. After they took our tickets we got to sit in a big beautiful turn-of-the-century theater covered with Arabic motifs. Then Dan Savage showed up and gave us a talk before the movies commenced. He first answered some of the index card questions, and he gave what I considered some pretty phenomenal answers considering he didn’t have any time to prepare. One question was, “I am a gay man and I have recently begun a relationship with someone new. When I friended him on Facebook I noticed we had about twenty friends in common, all young Asian men. I am a young Asian man. Should I be concerned? Should I break up with him?” Dan Savage said, “There’s nothing wrong your new boyfriend having a preference. Everybody has preferences. If a white man only dates other white men, no one thinks anything of it. Here’s the key – as long as he treats you like a person with thoughts and feelings and opinions and value who happens to be young and Asian, that’s fine. If he treats you like an object, like a fetish trinket, then you should cut him loose.” Another question was, “I am a straight man. My wife just left me for a woman. She wants to keep it a secret from our kids, but I don’t feel like I should have to do that. What would you recommend?” “Ooooh,” Dan said. “People are going to disagree with me on this, but I don’t think you should have to keep that secret. When your wife left you for another woman, making it a possibility that she was a lesbian the whole time and the entire marriage was a sham, she wrote that story. But this is your story too, and you have every right to tell your side. If your children ask, you should tell them the truth. You don’t have to force it on them, but if it comes up, you can say whatever you feel comfortable with.” I thought those were terrific answers to some tough topics and my esteem for Dan Savage went way up.

Then he explained the rules to us. I LOVED the rules. I think people are entitled jerk-faces and these rules were a delicious treat to me, one in particular. I’ll explain. Recently I went to see the Broadway show Pippin with my parents and throughout the entire show a man sitting in front of me would pull out his cellphone and check his texts. The text screen is mostly white, so that light was blasting right into my face every time. I thought about asking him to stop but he looked scary and I didn’t want to start a situation, so me and all the people sitting around me seethed through whole chunks of the show. At Hump Tour it was explained that since these were amateur videos, these people are possibly professionals and didn’t want their jobs jeopardized for performing. “Therefore,” Dan said, “There are people standing at the bottom of the screen watching you the entire time. There are three of my staff scattered throughout the audience, and they will not be watching the movies, they will also be watching you the entire time. If you pull out a cell phone for any reason it will be taken away from you and never returned. If you automatically pull out your phone when it vibrates, turn it completely off so you won’t be tempted.” As he said this I closed my eyes and let it wash over me. Repercussions for poor behavior! So yummy and fantastic! It’s one of the reasons I adore this commercial by the Alamo Drafthouse:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1L3eeC2lJZs

After the rules were covered the retrospective began. I won’t go into the details but I will say that what I expected was exactly what I got. I had anticipated that 95% of the films would make me go, “Well, if that’s what you’re into…” and 5% would make me go “THAT’S NOT A GOOD THING TO BE INTO PLEASE STOP.” I will never be able to listen to the song “Blow, Gabriel, Blow” the same way again. I think I spoke under my breath a few times, once to say, “Sir, do not lick that oil-encrusted car part, that will give you cancer. Sir? Sir? He’s licking it.” Then was also “Wash you hands before you touch that pizza.” What was so surprising to me was how un-titillated I was. If I had to describe the experience, it would be, “White people have too much free time.” And before you judge me, you go see all these films and then try to tell me that we know how to fill the hours of the day productively. All this libidinous exploration makes me tired. I’m glad I went, but I don’t know if I would go again. If you want a more thorough explanation of the films, meet me in person and I will describe them in detail, complete with hand gestures and festive sound effects. In the meantime, the creators of one of the films put their entry up on YouTube. You can watch it and get a sense of Hump Tour.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSWIfToGGsk

Posted in Movie and Book Reviews. Possibly With Spoilers., New York, Random Art Bloggery, Stuff | No Comments »

Television I have recently stuffed in my brain.

April 29th, 2014

There’s some good TV out there right now, much of it streaming. Now when I come home instead of flicking betwixt two sub-par programs (Giant River Fish! Dwarves Having Dwarf Babies! Serial Killers’ Favorite Lunch Meats!) I now am delighted to snorf down something of quality. Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of bad television out there. With good there is always bad. It just seems like the scales are tipped more in the favor of good for once. I’m going to run through everything I’ve watched recently. Before I get to TV series, I would like to recommend the episode of Nature, the show on PBS, that was on the Japanese snow monkeys. There is one path into the area, and I took this photo on that path:

In the documentary, you will see the same shot. Not similar kind-of-sort-of. Identical. It’s funny. Also, the episode spawned one of my favorite animated gifs of late called “Mmmmmmnope.”

Okay. TV show reviews.

1. House of Cards on Netflix. I’ve only seen the first season, but it’s very good. Really good. Like a dirty grimy West Wing. It’s beautifully filmed and it makes Washington D.C. look like a bizarre Wizard of Oz-type place. There’s intrigue and plotting plotting plotting, I find it totally engrossing. Robin Wright’s costumes are fierce every damn time. She is not a spring chicken (though she takes impeccable care of herself) but she manages to look amazing every time she’s on-screen. It’s nice to see the girl from The Princess Bride portraying the sexiest shark in town. My only problem with the show is the woman who plays the President’s Chief of Staff is supposed to be Cuban-American, but she’s clearly South Asian, like Indian or Pakistani, and she has a tinge of an accent from there. Seriously? This is America. We have a gazillion Latin people, I bet some of them are women and might be actors. We couldn’t hire one of them? It’s a little thing, but I find it sometimes takes me out of the action. Other than that, super-great show.

2. True Detective on HBO*. Oh my God. I’ve watched this series twice and I may watch it again just for kicks. It’s like a series of oil paintings in a row that take you on a journey. The main stars are Woody Harrelson and Matthew MacConaughey. My initial reaction was, “I had no idea those two stoners could act so well.” They are magnificent. I’ve never been on the MacConaughey train during all those rom-coms he starred in. I mean, I could see he was handsome, but I didn’t really care. Guess what? I care now. He done acted the hell out of his character. His character is GLOOMY. I mean, bad things have happened to him so he has every right, but still, wow, pessimist is an understatement. Here’s a disturbing thing I discovered: If you watch True Detective and Rust Cohle (MacConaughey’s character) goes into one of his down-in-the-dumps speeches, you should think, “What a looney-basket spouting crazy thoughts.” That is the correct response. That means you are healthy and well in the head. Here’s an example of one.

“I think human consciousness is a tragic misstep in evolution. We became too self-aware, nature created an aspect of nature separate from itself, we are creatures that should not exist by natural law. We are things that labor under the illusion of having a self; an accretion of sensory, experience and feeling, programmed with total assurance that we are each somebody, when in fact everybody is nobody. Maybe the honorable thing for our species to do is deny our programming, stop reproducing, walk hand in hand into extinction, one last midnight – brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal.”

I not only understood everything Rust Cohle said in the entire series, I agreed with him. Entirely. Ohhhhh dear. That’s not good. I feel like that should be on a psych eval (“Do you understand and agree with everything Rust Cohle says?”) and if you say yes you don’t get to be a police officer or elementary school teacher or whatever.

Final thoughts: the baddie at the end is scary as hell and gets scarier the more times you watch him. Ugh, he is the mayor of Creepytown. The actor said he would go home and cry after shooting his scenes because he had to think like his character thinks and he didn’t want to. That’s a bad bad villain.

3. Sons of Anarchy on FX. Such high hopes for that. I know several people who like that show. I started watching it and I was totally into it. The actors are great, but either your show is based in reality or it’s not. I’ll explain. In the pilot episode of the show a preemie baby is born and is in the NICU. And then over the next six or seven episodes, like, thirty characters die. No joke. Seriously. Bodies droppin’ everywhere. At that point the lead actor says, “I’m excited to take my son home, he’s been in the hospital for a month.” So I am to understand that in the time period of a month in a not-especially populous area of California tens of people have died in violent ways, including an FBI investigator, and everything is running as usual? I don’t care how many cops you have on your payroll, someone somewhere is going to notice that. This is not the favelas of Brazil. Then the hardships keep coming at a rate that prevented me from suspending my disbelief any further, so in the middle of Season 3 I politely bowed out. This character gets blown up and this other character gets raped and this guy’s wife is shot and on and on every episode… Too much. I can’t no more.

4. Rick and Morty on Adult Swim (Cartoon Network). Weird. That show is weird. I really like it though. You remember back in the 90s before the internet there wasn’t a whole lot of weird television made available. You pretty much had Liquid TV on MTV and that’s it. I ate that kind of stuff up. I didn’t necessarily like all of it, but I loved that it was being made. One of the shows being made at that time was The Maxx. I adored that show. If you watch it now it seems kind of dated, but I had never seen anything like that. And I get that same feeling from Rick and Morty. It’s bizarre and fun and involves going to different planets and alternate dimensions. Here, watch the opening credits (the music is a clear homage / ripoff of Dr. Who):

http://video.adultswim.com/rick-and-morty/theme-song.html

The first season just ended, so when it (hopefully) shows up on streaming Netflix and you need some oddness in your life, check it out.

5. The League on FX. I don’t care about football, and I extra-super-duper don’t care about fantasy football. However, the cast of this show makes it a jolly good show. They are all immature dorks wearing adult-man suits (and one woman, but she’s kind of token) who are all professional stand-up comedians and actors in real life, so they improv their lines a great deal and it’s awesome. There’s a quick-wit quality you get from The League that I don’t think you get from a totally scripted show. And while many of the plot lines relate to football, many of the plot lines relate to personal events going on in the main character’s lives, so I can still follow along. I’ve watched all the seasons and I shall continue watching despite my complete ignorance of who’s a running back or wide receiver or kicker.

*Alternate title: Matthew MacConaughey Smokes All The Cigarettes In The World Ever.

Addendum – May 12th: I forgot to include Shameless and Oz. Shameless is on Showtime and it is crazy. I cannot figure out for the life of me how they got this show made. It’s about a family living in a poor neighborhood in Chicago and it… there are children on this show. Children. I have watched scenes where these children see a profoundly naked homeless man, their mother who has slit her wrists due to bi-polar disorder, drugs and sex and stealing and oh my God, how are these child actors dealing with this? From this description it sounds like the show is a debbie-downer but it is not. It mainly revolves around how all these people are keeping their head up and making their own lives through the hardships that come upon them, and the show’s damn funny. I highly recommend it but under no circumstances should you watch it with children or the elderly unless you want to explain things to them. Here’s the opening credits to give you an idea.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JyB6Bu3gsI

And here’s a brief overview with the cast.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K8Ug-EHivc

Oz on HBO. This show is pushing twenty years old but I never saw it. Snorth recommended that I check it out and now I’m two seasons in. I do not want to go to prison. No no. Not that I wanted to before, but now, I totally do not want to go to prison. People are really really mean there. It’s a great show, kind of dated by today’s standards of television-making, but thoroughly engrossing. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much male nudity on a show. I really pleased by that, not because I have a penchant for male jingly-jangly, but we are constantly seeing ladybits on television nowadays and I like that this attempts to even that out a bit. And I like that they aren’t afraid to kill off some characters and introduce new ones. It keeps it feeling fresh.

Posted in Movie and Book Reviews. Possibly With Spoilers., Random Art Bloggery, Teh Intarwebz, The Telly | No Comments »

Kultchrrr.

April 22nd, 2014

I did stuff in New York which was good for m’brain! And I only paid for one of them! I don’t know if anyone paid attention or cared, but a few weeks ago was a weekend where New York was slathered in art and art-related activities, the primary branch of which was the Contemporary Art Fair down at the piers. It filled two piers, that’s how much ahhhht there was. I tend to get very angry when I am exposed to contemporary art (see this post to understand why) and it was a $40.00 entrance fee to get in, so I was not going. But then Neenernator called and said she had done the retouching work for this advertisement:

And in addition to getting paid, she received two free tickets and would I like to go with her? I have a policy that when free tickets are presented, I should go because who cares if it sucks? It’s free. This policy has worked out very well for me so I went. Lo and behold, I hated very little of the work shown! It’s a Christmas miracle. I will now discuss the one piece that made me want to slaughter not the artist, he’s just trying to make a buck, but anyone who considered buying it. Death. I wish death upon you, art-purchaser.

It was a paper towel dispenser mounted on a wall. That’s it. It wasn’t bedazzled or nothing. And based on the prices of some the pieces of art around it (more often than not, there was no price tag because gallery owners be pretentious) the towel dispenser was between $7,000 and $20,000. That’s just a guess. Maybe it was a giveaway at $3,500. That’s not the point. The point is EFF YOU.

The thing I liked about the art fair was, for most of it, even if I didn’t like the art I respected the process that went into it. I saw a giant disc painted with tiny gray dots in concentric circles and while I don’t really want that in my house it clearly took a long time to paint all those dots and I commend the artist for investing the time. I would say that was the case for most everything I saw. Here’s some pieces I liked (most of the pictures pulled from the internet and not taken by me BTW):

No surprise here, a large (approximately 4′ x 5′) painting of a plaid squirrel. It was $7,500, but it doesn’t matter because it was sold anyway.

A mobile where the glass in coated with something that reminds me of the 80s. I love how the skylights of the pier, when filtered through, look rainbow-licious. This feeds right into my Lisa Frank desires.

The marble Island of Manhattan. It was AMAZING. There bridges were there, the buildings were there, it was phenomenal.

The paintings that were used in the brochure Neenernator worked on. They were made by putting oil paints in a frosting bag and then squeezing them all over a canvas. I wanted to lick them but I think that kind of thing is frowned upon (or encouraged, who knows, art people are weird).

There were some Nick Cave costumes. I’ve spoken previously about how much I love Nick Cave’s work, and now I finally had the opportunity to walk right up to them and examine them right up close. That was great.

These stitched fabric doorknobs.

This figurine. Rock that whale tail, little feller!

This yarn tractor.

And these clouds painted in stages on twelve panes of glass giving the impression of three-dimensionality. This idea I might steal. You should too, it’s a great idea.

I may go again next year (if Neenernator snags another free ticket, it is not worth $40 to me) and see what there is to see.

The other thing I did recently was see “All The Way,” the play on Broadway about President Johnson starring Bryan Cranston. It was so great IF (I made that if capitalized for a reason) you like historical drama. Did you think the movie Lincoln was gripping and fascinating? You’re going to love “All The Way.” Did you think Lincoln was sooooo dull and tedious? You’re going to not like “All The Way.” I was riveted for several reasons: one, I find history really interesting because it happened, it’s not fiction. Second, my complete lack of American history knowledge worked for me because all the reveals were shocking surprises. Wait, Martin Luther King had extramarital sex?!?? J. Edgar Hoover was gay?!? The South used to be Democratic?!?!! Quelle surprise (pour moi)! I went with my father and since he’s 83 he totally remembers LBJ and he said Bryan Cranston was spot-on. In addition to the show being excellent, the production design (set, lighting, AV) was phenomenal. There were moving set pieces and syncing video and flashing lights that were critical to conveying plot points to the audience, and they were all perfect and tight. It was impeccable. I highly recommend going. Favorite line: “Nothing comes easy. Nothing bad, but also nothing good. When a carpenter builds a barn, if wood could speak, it would be screaming.”

Posted in New York, Random Art Bloggery, Stuff | No Comments »

This is Charta!!!*

April 14th, 2014

*I think I’ve used that one before. I don’t care. I like it. I’m using it again.

First, a random collection of charts I’ve seen on the internet:

And I’d like to draw your attention to Gemma Correll. I like her stuff a great deal. I hope to see more of her awesomeness in the future.

And in case you’re wondering if she really looks like the girl in the fourth image, yup, yes she does.

Posted in Charts, Random Art Bloggery, Teh Intarwebz | No Comments »

Things I have liked recently.

April 11th, 2014

1. http://onestarbookreview.tumblr.com/

One star book reviews. I especially appreciated this one because I often hate classical books:

“The evidence is mounting. I am a philistine.”

2. I didn’t ride on it the last time I was there, but there’s a Bug Carousel at The Bronx Zoo! I adore the dung beetle bench. If I ever got married, me and my beau would need to take fancy wedding pictures on the dung beetle bench.

3. I now want to make see-through stickers and put them on things.

4. I received some spam as I do on a regular basis. I was going to delete it, but before I did I noticed that it was sent from someone who’s name was “Breast Nexus.” Is that not the greatest name from a steamy romance novel? Seriously. I typed “Breast Nexus” into Google and got this:

Wow. Okay. This photoshop then immediately had to be made.

Posted in Beastiesbeastiesbeasties, Movie and Book Reviews. Possibly With Spoilers., Nature, New York, Random Art Bloggery, Stuff, Teh Intarwebz | No Comments »

My kitchen. Progress!

April 8th, 2014

All the cabinets are in! Boom! One thing down. Now the rest of this never-ending journey continues – the countertop, the backsplash, the plumbing. I’ll keep you in the loop.

Posted in Apartment | No Comments »

Japan 2014, Part finished.

April 1st, 2014

Okay. Here’s the company that I took my tour with:

http://alljapantours.com/

And here’s the itinerary for the winter tour.

Winter Highlights – Snow Monkey & Kawazu Cherry Blossom Festival Tour

Helpful tips that I have accrued:

1. Bring a ton of yen. It’s a cash-based country and there are very few ATMs. For my two-week vacation I used about $1000 (10,000 yen). I also bought a whole bunch of stuff so you may use less, but it’s good to have it on hand.

2. Wear slip-on shoes. If you visit places of interest, there is a good chance you will have to take off your shoes. It’s a pain in the kiester to tie and untie them because more often than not there’s no place to sit or anything so you end up doing this awkward hopping dance in an attempt to get the shoe on your foot. Also, try not to have socks with holes in them. Japanese people think that’s impolite.

3. On escalators, hold on to the opposite side than in the U.S. if you’re standing still. They drive on the opposite side of the road, so you hold on to the other side of the escalators.

4. Leave lots of time to get anywhere. The train stations are huge and confusing with multiple floors and an enormous floorplan. You will get lost a great deal. Budget in time for that. Try to grab as many maps as you can wherever you are. They are a lifesaver. Did I mention most streets don’t have names?

5. Schoolchildren will walk up to you and ask you if you can answer some questions. Do not panic. This is a common school assignment. They will ask you about three very basic questions (“Where are you from?”) and more likely than not they will struggle to understand your answer because they are in their first year of English. Then they will ask to take a photo with you. That’s it. No biggie.

6. Sometimes when you ask for directions Japanese people will run away from you. It’s not because you are gross. It’s because even through they understand you and know where you want to go they’re ashamed of their pronunciation of English. They know they get the “R” and “L” thing wrong and they don’t want you to hear them talk. If they don’t run away they may give you directions only using their hands.

7. Try very very hard not to say “no.” You have no idea how difficult this is. It’s like trying to not think about pink elephants. The Japanese think that the word no is super-offensive, so you have to use work-arounds. I saw a girl visibly recoil after The Moomins said no to her. I used “I’m afraid not, but thank you,” while bowing copiously and making an I’m-so-sorry face.

8. Bring a washtowel with you. Many bathrooms don’t have towels or dryers so most everyone has a tea-towel in their purse. (I did what I do in the States which is wipe my hands on my cotton t-shirts, classy 4ever).

9. People don’t eat and walk simultaneously so there are surprisingly few trashcans. If you expect to have trash, bring a small plastic bag with you. There will be garbage cans and recycle bins near large banks of vending machines so you can wait until you get to one. But like on the street? No trashcans.

10. If you order sushi and the waitress says, “Wasabi?” say no. They will slather your sushi with wasabi on the inside so you can’t scrape it out and your head will go up in flames. Learn from my mistakes (I did it twice).

11. Okay, how the subways work in Tokyo. You go down the stairs in your station and you go up to the ticket machines. Above it will be a giant graph. You find the station you are in and the station you wish to go to. Depending on the distance the prices will be 160 yen, 240 yen, etc. You punch the number of tickets you need and the corresponding yen amount for each ticket (the buttons are really simple like Fisher-Price) and little raffle tickets will come out. You go up to the ticket turnstile, shove the raffle ticket in the turnstile and it will pop out after the spinny bit. Save that ticket. Do not throw it away. You will need it to exit at your destination station. There’s a turnstile to get out. You shove the raffle ticket in there and the machine eats it. Then you can leave.

12. If you forget everything else, the three things you mustn’t do under any circumstance is stick your chopsticks upright in your rice, go into an onsen still dirty or with soap on you or have the nasty soles of your shoes touch anything it’s not supposed to touch. Be nice to everyone and speak softly. Everyone knows you’re a big dumb foreigner, they’re going to set their standards low. You’ll be fine. Have fun.

Here’s a great video of mascots dancing. Because Japan.

http://youtu.be/BP469wlVuZU

Addendum: This is cool. Japanese demons that get you while you’re on the (heated) toilet.

http://io9.com/14-terrifying-japanese-monsters-myths-and-spirits-1498740680

Posted in Stuff, Tasty 'n' Delicious, Travels - I Has Them | No Comments »

Japan 2014, Part 13.

April 1st, 2014

It is astonishing how quickly your habits can change over a period of two weeks. Over the two weeks I made a concerted effort to eat what everyone else was eating, like soup with noodles and local vegetables and delicious little slime-covered mushrooms:

And on the last day I didn’t even bother with the eggs and bacon and cereal. On my breakfast plate is hijiki salad, two pickled plums, white rice and those slime-shrooms. Not in the picture but also being consumed: green tea and miso soup. I actually wanted these things over the typically Western dishes. Japan had broken me completely.

Also consumed at the final breakfast, this:

Not bad. A little burn-y due to the vinegar, but not bad.

Anyway, back to the tour. The second-to-last night we were left to our own devices and a few of us decided to go to Shinjuku, the Times Square of Tokyo. Our hotel was relatively close to Shinjuku in a cool area. The Moomins and I had a room overlooking nothing, but the guys across the hall took this photo of their view.

So the younger members of the tour (myself included) headed off to the bright lights of Shinjuku.

Where there was the most segregated smoking area ever. It was in the middle of the main boulevard. “Go there and smoke! And feel shame in your corral of cancer!”

And a cab with this on it went by. Eeeg. Dear Lord, if that isn’t the uncanny valley I don’t know what is.

The group decided we wanted some sushi and all of us were pretty cool with any kind of sushi, so we found the most packed place we could (usually a sign of goodness) and ordered the $80.00 platter. I’ve never been so extravagant and ordered the big platter so I tried to forget it was being split six ways and felt fancy.

It was fancy. And delicious. The main difference between Japanese sushi and American sushi is the taste. Even basic sushi there tastes better. The tuna has a real flavor, did you know that? I didn’t, not really. It’s quite nice. And the spicy tuna thing, it’s not there. It’s a uniquely American thing, like California rolls. Uni (sea urchin) shows up a bunch more which is upsetting because it tastes like low tide. Luckily the group picked the platter that was uni-free.

I saw on the wall that one of the specials that day was “deep-fried tuna cheek” and I was like, “Hell, that sounds thoroughly weird and possibly amazing. Imma get that.” So I did. And it was nice. Tasty. Not life-altering, but I definitely didn’t regret getting it. The left bowl has salt, the right bowl has mustard.

Shinjuku. It’s a vibrant area with all kinds of activities open late into the evening. I walked past a store with this monster on the outside.

I have no idea what that store purveys. Video games? Bath products? Don’t know, don’t care. I was creeped out and didn’t bother to stick around and investigate.

We went into a toy store that was many floors and I ended up buying a myriad of these intensely weird action figures from some Japanese TV show, a show like Power Rangers. I mean, how could I not? Look at them, they’re so varied.

We also went to a six-floor bookstore Kinokuniya. I insisted on this because that sentient toilet book had been haunting me and I would come home with regrets if I didn’t make one final effort to find it. This bookstore had a whole floor devoted only to children’s books, so I had high hopes. I navigated through the aisles until I made it to the elevator and went to the top floor. Before I bothered one of the people working there I figured I’d give it my best shot looking on my own. There were many books laying out so I could see the covers (the spines, of course, were undecipherable to me) and I came to the realization that for such a closed-in culture, the Japanese have WAAAAAY too many books on poop. Seriously. These are the poop-related books that were laying face-up. Who knows how many more were stacked so I couldn’t see them. There was this one which had a corresponding set of playing cards:

There was this one, I assume about all the magical textures and shapes:

This one had the protruding display you see there, the cheeks really come out at you. After leafing through it I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s called “Let’s Learn About the Magic of Dad’s Ass.” Not joking. That’s what the book appeared to be about.

Monster wiping. No clue. Didn’t look through it.

After perusing the best that I could and coming up empty-handed, I went to the checkout girl, got out an envelope and a pen from my purse and said, “Okay, this is what I need. There’s this toilet *drew the toilet* and he’s got a Dali mustache *drew the mustache* and he’s going through the forest *drew the forest*.” For added explanation I made a little skipping gesture while swinging my arms to convey merrily going through a forest. After the shopgirl had stopped laughing at me she called her co-workers over and had them look at my sketch and when they had pulled themselves together she held up her hand telling me to wait while she looked on the computer.

After a few minutes the checkout girl said, “Ah!” and turned her screen towards me. There he was, my gamboling toilet-man! She went to the shelf and lo and behold, there wasn’t just one book about him. There was a sequel as well. I bought both. Here are pictures from the original.

One last thing from Shinjuku: Look at this spooky entrance to something on the second level. That is off-putting.

One of the final activities on the tour was going to Odaiba, a man-made island with some crazy modern architecture. First we took a boat over with some great signage inside.

When we arrived, I was impressed with the Fuji building directly in front of me.

Has everyone seen all the X-Men movies? Everybody know Cerebro? Doesn’t this look like this contains Cerebro? I think it totally does.

There was this building as well. Fun story behind that one.

According to Kimi-San that yellow thing was supposed to stand upright and look like a flame but it was too heavy so they left it laying on its side. Kimi-San said everyone thought it looked like a turd, so if you ask a taxi driver to take you to “Turd Building,” this is where he will bring you. I’m sure the architect is thrilled about that. I personally think it looks more like a sperm, but whatever.

This is the Rainbow Bridge connected Odaiba with Tokyo. Yes, that is a scale model of the Statue of Liberty left over from 1999, “The French Year of Japan.”

When the bridge was built rainbow lights lit it up and it was very beautiful. It was so beautiful, in fact, that drivers kept looking at the lights and crashing. So the rainbow lights are only turned on for special occasions. Here’s a picture I found of what it looks like lit up.

Also on the last day we went to the Imperial Palace. Outside was a statue of a famous samurai. I liked it because it had great and powerful motion.

And also because little birds had made a nest in the hollows of the horse’s tail.

We visited the Sensoji Temple, one of the only temples I got to see with big ole pagodas. It was a lovely temple, albeit a bit crowded.

Here are people shaking those containers with the numbers and opening the corresponding drawer to get their fortune. I mentioned how that works earlier.

Off to the side was this statue. The informational plaque didn’t have any English, so when I returned home I looked it up. All I could find out was this sentence.

In Sensoji area, it is built to comfort spirits of mothers and children in Manchuria towards the end of WWII.

I stood respectfully in front of it for a minute or two. I didn’t know what it was for, but the fact that people had covered her with shawls and bibs and a hat made me realize that this was something painful and important to people. Her lips look stained, like people have been kissing her. I felt like it deserved a minute of my time, even if I didn’t know why.

Additional photos:

A fugu restaurant. I did not eat there. I do not care how well you prepare your pufferfish, I don’t need to die in such a lame manner just for a thrill.

This is the sign from the Cattleya Coffeeshop in Gion, Kyoto.

Teeny plants in a wall. The Moomins said in South Africa they’re called “fairy gardens.”

A rickshaw. It’s more of a novelty than a real mode of transportation, but cool to see nonetheless.

A store that only sells seaweed and seaweed products.

A store that only sells sweet potato and sweet potato products.

Some kitties I saw hanging out on a sign in Ginza, one of the fanciest shopping districts.

The exterior of an old established Chinese restaurant in Kyoto. One of the only examples of typical European architecture.

And outside the hotel near the airport, a pretty garden and some fantastic koi fish.

That’s it. That was my trip to Japan. It was everything I had hoped for and I cannot wait to go back. In my next entry I’ll link to the itinerary of my tour in case you want to take the same one (I recommend it) and helpful hints that I discovered along the way.

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Japan 2014, Part 12.

March 27th, 2014

Since this was a wacky winter of death in Japan some of the things near the end of the tour were not feasible because the roads were closed, Kimi-San contacted the main branch of the tourist company and found us other things to do. One of those things was going to Yokohama, a large city near Tokyo. Tokyo has some of the most expensive real estate in the world, so many commuters who work in Tokyo live in Yokohama. It’s a major port city so we went to the docks where some of the uninhabited warehouses near the water have been turned into shops and restaurants, not unlike the Chelsea Market or the piers in Manhattan. Yokohama is often referred to as the San Francisco of Japan, and this picture shows why.

At the docks we saw the ocean liner Hikawa Maru. She was built in the late 1920s and sailed from Japan to Seattle. A ticket cost $12,000 then, so I can’t even imagine how much it would cost now. During WWII she was used as a floating hospital but now all her inner workings have been removed and she is permanently docked in Yokohama as a museum. It was sort of like seeing the Japanese Titanic. One of my favorite things about seeing the ship was the seagulls on the chain. Each one had his or her own link.

After walking through the former warehouse / now restaurants and markets (where I got a spectacular piece of kanzashi that looks like this), we went to the Yokohama Chinatown. It’s about 150 years old and what surprised me most about it was how immaculate it was. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to New York’s Chinatown but grossness pervades, mainly due to the fish markets and the stank water that runs from them. This place was sparkling clean, just like everywhere else in Japan.

The Japan are completely enthralled by anything cute (or “kawaii”) and China has pandas which are cute. Therefore the Chinatown is slathered in panda-ness. This was the entrance to one store.

This was inside of a typical store. The devotion to kawaii is to be commended.

Unrelated: We are really slacking on the cuteness. The Japanese have stickers that not only have adorable little characters on them, but they have glitter snow globes built in. Step it up, USA.

Back to Chinatown. There were restaurants everywhere. Now, I love soup dumplings but I’ve pretty much only eaten pork soup dumplings or crab soup dumplings, which are basically pork soup dumplings with a sprinkling of crab on top. Check this out. If I hadn’t just eaten I would have gone into this place and tried that sampler pack on the top. I don’t know what’s in them, but they look freaking delicious.

Not everything in Chinatown was happy and beautiful. There was this bizarre window decoration.

I sang “Oh, we’ree gonna have a crustacean Christmas!” in a Cotton-Eyed-Joe voice periodically for the rest of the day, occasionally with some square-dancing moves to add color. The Moomins was not impressed.

And this nightmare fuel was in a glass box outside of a store.

Ummm, where’s his face? Has everyone seen Hellboy? There’s a character who cuts off his lips and eyelids because he has body dysmorphia and goshdarnit if this doesn’t look like the Japanese version of him. So, long story short, horrifying.

After visiting Yokohama we went to the Tokyo Tower. It’s modeled after the Eiffel Tower. It’s primary uses are for tourists to go take in the view and as an antenna for several TV stations. Fun fact: in the middle of building it, Japan realized they were out of metal, but America was selling a bunch of stuff from the Korean War, tanks and ships and such. The Japanese bought it and used the metal to finish the last third. It’s painted orange and white so planes don’t smack into it.

And it has a weird little conehead mascot who is sometimes wearing a band-aid on his extended noggin.

Look at the cute Tokyo Tower road cones they have!

The view wasn’t spectacular because Tokyo is built to be functional. It is an expansive city though.

Japan is extremely blind-person-friendly. This I found confusing: since the viewing platform is a circle you get a 360-degree view of the city, and there are little plaques telling you what you’re looking at in that direction. Here’s on for the blind to tell them that they are looking at Mt. Fuji. Except they’re not. Because they’re blind. I mean, it’s thoughtful, but I think a little useless to them.

Something that took me a while to figure out are the grill-type tiles on all the sidewalks and in a lot of buildings. I originally thought they were a way to help bicyclists or something, but I found out later that blind people follow them with their feet and it points them in the right direction and guides them. THAT, that is ingenious.

There was a shrine at the Tokyo Tower. When I say shines are everywhere, I mean it.

As with most scenic skyscraper places, this had a small portion of the floor covered with glass so you could look down at the ground.

After visiting the Tokyo Tower, which is in a fairly touristy part of town, we went to a gigantor ferris wheel. It’s like the one in London where it never stops, you just slide into a pod as it slowly goes by. It take 12 minutes to make one complete revolution. Due to my complete lack of bravery, I declined to ride on it.

Oh, there’s a completely clear one? NOOOOOOO.

In the adjacent building was the Toyota prototype building where you could go in and see the newest models of their cars.

In there was a car completely covered in denim. It had rivets on it and everything. I don’t know why. I just chalk it up to Japan bein’ all Japan. That was my answer for a lot of things.

Off of the Toyota dealership was a mall with a store dedicated to Hello Kitty. It was the pinkest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.

In case you don’t think the Japanese worship Hello Kitty, I present you with this:

And I know it says “Happy White Day!” at the bottom there. This is not a racist thing. It’s what the Japanese call the day one month after Valentine’s Day (March 14). On Valentine’s Day the women give men handmade chocolates, and on White Day the men give women chocolates. It was started in the 1970s by the confectionery industry.

Additional pics:

In keeping with the previous chocolate theme, this was a chocolate sculpture in the entrance hall of a department store. It was based on Captain Hook from Peter Pan.

And a drink that could either taste delicious or horrid. I only saw this sign in passing and didn’t have time to try it.

And a sign on the highway going in Tokyo showing the traffic tie-ups in real time.

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Japan 2014, Part 11.

March 24th, 2014

Before we get started today, I’d like to introduce you to one of my favorite desserts that I discovered accidentally. I bought it one day at a coffee shop near our hotel in Kyoto and I made The Moomins go back there every morning for three days afterwards to get it (it wasn’t really a sacrifice for The Moomins, the coffee shop had good hot black tea which she loved, everyone wins). I didn’t know what it was but I like light green so I figured how bad could it be?

OMG GUYS. It was a soft bread like challah covered with a layer of honeydew melon royal icing and filled with cantaloupe custard. Ohhhhhh, so good. I love melon-flavored anything, especially honeydew, so I was in total heaven. I’ve never seen anything like it here in the states and I fear I may only dream of this delicious treat from now on. It’s okay, I’ll temper my grief with honeydew bubble tea. I’ll get through this. But if anyone sees it at like, a Japanese bakery, could you let me know? I needs mah melon bun.

I ended up with a real Pavlovian situation because all the desserts in Japan are beautiful, often imitating delicate natural elements. When I was in the plum garden I found myself wanting to pull the flowers off the branches and stuff them in my mouth because my brain had now made the connection between pretty pink flowers and sweet delicious treats. Japan gave me pica.

While we were staying at the Hotel New Akao we went to a neighboring village to see some waterfalls.

The waterfalls were not crazy-spectacular, but was was cool was seeing how the lava had flowed a gazillion years ago when this area was formed.

At one point I turned around and grabbed The Moomins’ arm. “What?” she said, thinking something had happened. I said, “Look at those rocks. Those are basalt columns. I’ve always wanted to see hexagonal rock columns. This is SO EXCITING.” She was substantially less excited, but I think she thought it was cute how I was fawning over some stone pillars so she feigned some glee for me.

Here’s a screengrab I got off of Google Images to give you an idea of how cool they look when they cooled at the just the right speed and there’s no vegetation. I think you have to go to Iceland or Russia to see perfect examples, but I was thoroughly delighted to see these imperfect ones.

Off to the side of the waterfall was a little nook in the rock where people could go and sit in the healing waters.

In order to raise money for the waterfalls to be maintained, the park rangers collect the water-smoothed stones and set up this wishing-well-type-thing on top of this boulder. For 300 yen you could get a small stone and try to toss it into the ring of rocks.

And here is one of the waterfalls.

Big old Buddha! That’s not an expletive, I got to go see one in Kamakura, one of the cutest villages I’ve ever been to. He’s made of bronze and they think he’s from 1252, but they’re not really sure. This is from Wikipedia:

That wooden statue version was damaged by a storm in 1248, and the hall containing it was destroyed. The hall was destroyed again by a storm in 1334, was rebuilt, and was damaged by yet another storm in 1369, and was rebuilt yet again. The last building housing the statue was washed away in the tsunami of September 20, 1498, during the Muromachi period. Since then, the Great Buddha has stood in the open air.

Oh, that’s nice. Instead of fire, the temple was destroyed repeatedly by water. Living on the Pacific Rim is rough. At one point in history the Buddha was covered in gold leaf, and there’s a bit left near his ears, but otherwise he’s just bronze. And, not surprisingly, because this is Japan, both the Buddha and everything around him is very photogenic.

Here’s a picture of the Buddha with the incense-holder in front of him.

And here’s a view through the incense holder to the Buddha-sized slippers mounted on the far-away wall off to the right.

You could go inside the Buddha. I have never been inside a diety before, so it was extremely exciting for me. He has windows in his back to let the light in.

There was a detailed explanation of how the artisans layered the bronze.

Off to the left of the former temple site was a wall of sake and miso. According to our guide Kimi-San companies that make sake, plum wine and miso donate big barrels of their product to various temples for their ceremonies, and the temples display those barrels so the companies get credit for their good deed.

I kept seeing small wooden fences covered with little paper strips. I learned that inside was a box filled with numbered cubes. You shake the box until a cube came out and in front of you is a corresponding bureau with numbered drawers. You take the fortune out of the drawer with the number of your cube and if it’s good you keep it and if it’s bad you tie it to the fence. Kind of like religious Yahtzee (I am so going to hell).

One of the things Kamakura is known for are cookies shaped like pigeons. They don’t taste like anything special, they’re just a crunchy butter cookie, but they’re a big deal. I found a description on this site:

Also popular with Japanese travelers to Kamakura are the crunchy dove-shaped butter cookies known as hato sabure, which have been a popular Kamakura specialty since a local shopkeeper started making his own interpretations of European biscuits in the Meiji era (1868-1912). The name comes from the French word sablé, which in the Japanese pronunciation sounds somewhat similar to the common boy’s name Saburo. The dove motif was inspired by the plaque above the main prayer hall at Tsurugaoka Hachimangu shrine, where the character for “Hachi” is shaped to look like a dove.

If I go back to Japan I will spend an entire day in Kamakura walking around. It looked absolutely charming. In the brief time I was there, I saw this:

The owners were this sweet elderly Japanese couple who had never been anywhere near Pennsylvania, but really dug the whole Amish thing. I honestly was curious what their interpretation of Amish cuisine was, and it was… cheesecake. And apple cake. And tea. So it was a regular tea house. But I appreciated the earnestness of it.

After Kamakura we went to the Gingko Temple, which is called Tsurugaoka Hachimangu I believe. It’s a tough name to say. It was built around a 1,000 ginkgo tree that sadly was uprooted in 2010 during a storm, but there’s a bit of stump left. It’s guarded by two grinning stone statues.

It is both a Shinto shrine and a Buddhist temple. See? Friendly religions. Lots of sharing. It never gets old.

As with almost every other temple, you could buy a placard and write your hopes and wishes on it with a Sharpie. After a certain amount of time all the placards are burned in a big bonfire sending your written statements into the sky. At this temple they were gingko-leaf-shaped.

I heard a rhythmic clanging down the long path to the street, so I thought something relevant or religious was going on. When I finally arrived at the source of the noise, I saw a woman roasting gingko nuts and the sound was her metal spoon banging against the side of the wok, constantly moving the ginkgo nuts so they didn’t burn.

I have eaten some gingko nuts in my life (they resemble chestnuts flavor-wise) but never roasted, so I bought a small bag. They came in the shell:

Which you had to crack open to reveal the edible part within.

I think they could have been roasted a while longer because they still had a bit of a bitter taste, but they were still a nice warm filling snack.

Once again, the kids in Japan are so freakin’ cute. I had to take a picture of this girl engrossed in the guide book while at the temple with her class. So earnest.

Some additional photos.

One of my favorite signs. It’s for a homeopathic pharmacy.

A supported tree. I love how they care about the trees in winter.

A crane on a roof.

A dove on a fence.

Two signs for a “Girl’s Bar.” I saw these signs all over. I assumed that they were strip clubs or something of that nature, but I forgot how reserved the Japanese are. Check it out: It means that there’s a girl bartender who is possibly wearing a tight shirt. Or, as we call it in New York, “every bar ever.”

Next up – Yokohama and Tokyo.

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