Cherry blossom trees, or sakura (see more info at Wikipedia) look amazing and this year I got to experience them for the first time ever in my life!
I’ve seen some pictures of the trees, I heard they’re beautiful, I heard they’re romantic, I heard they’re magical, but I didn’t hear about the crazy drunken madness at night! We went to experience Hanami (flower viewing, enjoying tasty bento similar to this) at Ohori koen (means… Ohori park). I thought I was in for a romantic sakura viewing… but in fact… it was more of a fun time packed full of people, mostly drunk office workers, with some romantic moments in the quiet areas (near the temple).
The road to the park was lined up with vendors selling things from chocholate covered bananas to takoyoki (a grilled octopus dish). There were some families with kids running around having a good time and couples eating bento together, and then… there were tons of drunk people with sake, sho chu, and grills. Apparently the people under the trees brought tarps in advance and 1-2 people reserved their spot. Each cluster seemed to stay within their group of people which is good when family + drunk people are mixed.
We took some pictures but most of them ended up blurry and I took a lot of video which I haven’t taken off the camera. Here are a few of the decent pictures from that night.
If I had to sum up this experience in one sentance I’d say… it was like a tailgating party for the sakura football game. Ahh… good times, good times.
It’s time to learn Japanese.
I’ve been in Japan for a little over 6 months and I like the country a lot. It feels like I’m in another world, a much different feeling I get from traveling to other countries. My main barrier is that I don’t speak the language and that makes it difficult to do simple things like make dinner plans, learn about current events in the area, or even get the help I might need when shopping. I’d say I know about 50 words at one given time (sometimes I learn new ones but forget others) and that helps, but it’s not good enough. My sentances are basic too. People are probably tired of me asking if they’re good, the weather is nice, and I’ll have a draft a beer.
I picked up a book of some basic vocabulary the last time I was at Costco, and an Australian friend gave me a Hiragana book as a gift which I’ve tried out and then became lazy.
My goal is to learn Hiragana in about 3 months, so I’ve set a goal of August 1st. And I plan on studying vocabulary as much as I study Hiragana. I know I can do this if I hit the books every day.
Update (April 14): After the comments and encouragement you guys left I’ve learned about a new book, new methods, and some new websites so I’ve decided to update my goal. I’ve been very motivated and went to a 90 minute Japanese conversation lesson on Saturday. The teacher was speaking Japanese and using Hiragana and Katakana to explain things which tells me I need to speed things up! So I’ve set a new goal of learning Hiragana in 3 weeks like claytonian mentioned, which is May 2nd. Then I’ll focus on Katakana.
A new salon opened here in Fukuoka a few months back. The name made me laugh every time I saw the sign. Ahhhh, good times, good times.
Unfortunately it seems like they were open for a few weeks and then closed up shop or moved. I’m not sure why, but the prices were comparable or a bit cheaper than other hair salons in the area.
One of the interesting things I’ve seen in Japan has to be how manual labor works. There are always two or more people to complete a task and most of the time it looks very efficient compared to the U.S. Let’s take construction for example… construction workers tend to get busy using everything from cranes to their bare hands and they’re rarely talking from what I can tell.
Something that I find interesting is even though construction can be happening downtown in multiple locations, I don’t seem to notice it. That’s because they usually block off the construction site wtih some type of wall or gate that surrounds the entire area. I’ve seen some cheap plastic walls, some expensive plastic walls with windows, and some wooden walls. I snapped some pics on a Sunday, so no workers were harmed in the photographing.
Here’s a picture of some type of portable wall
Ooo! This is the heavy duty wall with VIP windows!
I’m VIP, here’s proof, I’m looking through the window.
And here’s another construction location. It looks like they’re escavating dinosaurs.
When we first moved to Fukuoka we stopped by Costco with some friends. One of the items I bought was 9 pounds (4.08 kg) of Quaker Oats which I eat for breakfast a lot. I ran out this week but luckily we went to Costco a few weeks ago and I grabbed another box. Sure you can buy these online at a few places in Japan but it costs an additional 500-700 Yen for the box. Buying direct from Costco costs around 1200 Yen for this box. Anyway, it’s huge. The box is huge, the amount of Oatmeal is insane, and I say this because I’m more adjusted to smaller things and less quantity. I thought I’d share some pictures so you can see what it’s like.
Here are the directions. As you can see there are instructions for food service preparation and the two bags come to a combined total of 102 servings.
Here’s the box with the 2 bags of Oatmeal that was inside.
Here’s are some details.
This is after I filled up my small container that lasts about 2 months. Now I’m good to go!
You may remember back in 2007 that Lulu was dressed up for halloween, well this morning was cold so I decided to dress her up. She was loving her bee outfit and it was cute and funny at the same time because she was running around and playing It’s amazing how big she’s gotten and how her outfit fits her now.
Yeah… I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it or not but I’m 15 minutes away from 6 Starbucks Coffee shops here in Fukuoka. Now that’s going north, south, and east. I haven’t checked west yet…. there’s probably 3 more that way somewhere. One of the Starbucks is across the street from another Starbucks and about 3 blocks or so from another one down the side street.
So here we are… going into the Starbucks that’s inside Tsutaya.
For the record… Tsutaya is pretty sweet. It’s 6 stories and you can rent DVDs, CDs, buy them, get books and magazines, and enjoy some Starbucks. The DVD releases that have been out for a while usually run on a special that’s 4 DVDs for 1000 Yen. I’d say about $9-10 US.
Here’s kind of a cool photo
And here’s a picture I took from Starbucks of Starbucks across the street while enjoying some coffee with some friends.
By having so many Starbucks so close to me I’d have to say
- It’s kind of crazy in my opinion
- They are is busy and the city is big
- I love it!
Continue reading ‘Starbucks in Japan’
I have fiber optic internet here in Japan and for about $50 USD per month it’s a pretty good deal for how fast it is. It’s cheaper than my old Comcast cable modem too. Sometimes it seems lightening fast, other times sites from the U.S. load slow but it could be on the other end and not the fault of my ISP. I tested my internet speed today and here are the results. My ISP said it’s a 100mbps line and I’m only getting 25 so I might change my provider to see what other options are like. Click the image to test your speed and feel free to post the results here!
Here’s a commercial for Street Fighter IV: A New Beginning. This looks really awesome! I decided to post this video because of my friend Nick back in California… it reminded me of the home built arcade style controller we used for tournaments during poker night. It seems so advanced compared to the original. You can read more about this upcoming game here.
I forgot to include this picture so here you go! What’s interesting is right when we entered the Yahoo! Dome there was a cell phone company giving us king size snacks that taste like Cheetos. And there’s a snack bar, just like any other baseball stadium, but instead of beer, brats, and burgers they sell beer, yaki soba, takoyaki, and ramen. The prices were about the same. I just can’t imagine watching a game in the stands while slurping on some ramen using chopsticks while drinking beer. In that scenario there’s just too much going on. Of course I say this now, but just wait… in a year I’ll be doing it.
