My day started at home on monster island (Awajishima). Woke up at nine. Picked up my new cellphone at the nearby AU shop with Nam (will write review later – it’s a Sony/Ericsson A1402S, an upgrade from my trusty old Hitachi). Went to the high-speed boat terminal down the street and caught the hydrofoil to KIX. Met up with none other than deep thinking shitblogger extraordinaire, Kevin Kim, on a day trip from Big Hominid’s Hairy Chasms in the “sea of Korean tourists lugging many tape-patched boxes around” scenario alluded to in my previous post (link).
Hopped on the very Nemo-esque Nankai rapi:t train to downtown Osaka. Feeling hungry, we homed in on a forgettably-named okonomiyaki shop across from Namba Parks and I dutifully snapped the obligatory nerd blogger photos with new phone.
From the heavens, a seed crystal fell into my bowl. As structure took instant form from the nether edges of velvety nothingness, I watched the world exist apart from myself and stole a glimpse of the Path. This is how I achieved x-ray vision.
In my heightened state and unfettered by the bonds of sanity, I instantly realized that Kevin is indeed an alien construct like I suspected all along. However, also as predicted, we got along very well since my girlfriend and I as well as the entirety of the Asian continent (and for that matter any lines of text appearing on your screen) are merely figments of my blog’s imagination. There was way too much ice in our cokes.
Walked up the shotengai (covered arcade) to nanpabashi (pick-up bridge), where they have drained the stinky canal quite a bit and apparently plan to beautify the river… It just warms my heart to see my taxes spent in this purely symbolic effort, I mean, remind me again, how do you turn mercury into gold? But I won’t go into that today. A bald, scary-looking man dressed in shorts/white t-shirt approaches us after hearing us talking in English, and turning to me, loudly asks, What do you think takoyaki? I find myself strangely unable to answer, but I smile and the guy half-grins back in such a way that raises the hair on the back of my neck. Something is not right in there, behind his eyes, which would usually put me on guard. But today I am dwelling on a different plane and feel a strange need to help this guy in some way. So I have a brief conversation with madness and in a short time have confirmed that there is no answer to his riddle, it is a genetically modified logic bomb. Yet I must give some sort of answer. I stall by talking about the hot weather, then throw a loop back at him by teaching him the phrase, How about some hot takoyaki?, which seems to please him immensely. After practicing his pronunciation on me a couple times, he wanders off into the crowd chanting this new incantation over and over and over again. The crowd parts to let him through, this man with a new mission in life. (Note: If homeboy ends up stabbing someone important while yelling about hot takoyaki tomorrow, I’m really very sorry.)
We had dessert in Kirin Plaza at the far end of the bridge, on the 4th floor. Nice place. They have a brewery on the first floor, so I had a pint of their ale – yum. We saw an art exhibition on the 6th floor, which started out interesting but kinda fizzled out for me at the end. Too many neon fish-headed creatures. Plus, I hate galleries that ban photography outright. Many of the paintings were labeled as digital proofs, so I found the photo ban a bit ironic. But it was cool inside and hot on the street, and too many neon fish-headed creatures is, by definition, preceded by just enough neon fish-headed creatures, so I had my moment of equilibrium – which is definitely redeemable for an Hour or Two of Thornless Respite come Armageddon.
Nam took off for a dinner meeting with friends, and I walked with Kev back to Nankai Namba station. We parted ways there and I presume he is now locked in a room at the Korean customs office for trying to smuggle Japanese centipedes into the country so he could make them publicly surrender and admit that his centipede really kicks ass…
DVD Bonus: The toilets on a Nankai rapi:t train look like this.
UPDATE: If Kevin’s always going to let the Japanese version of history stand, I hereby declare the official spelling of his name everafter as “Cevin”. Also, I predict he may appeal (in vain) with minor technicalities (i.e., “it’s just a bug”), when he hears his pet centipede is now officially classified as a Japanese territory.
Quick Airport Tip
If you are picking up someone with the last name “Lee” whose flight from Korea disembarks at the exact same time as three others, it might not be terribly helpful to hold up a sign with only “Mr. Lee” written on it. I’m partly saying this for the benefit of the tour guide who did so and got bumrushed by fifty different Lees today, although he eventually learned from his mistake and scribbled in a first name and flight number as well.
Supplication
Kevin praying for a horny stewardess on his return flight at the Aoinari Okami shrine.
Mustard Art
Kevin’s rendition of “dragon” with squeeze-bottle mustard; edible okonomiyaki canvas.
Nam@okonomiyaki
Okonokiyaki at Namba Parks.
The Big Hominid
Owner and proprietor of Anger Poultry House.
Boat at Sumoto Port
Small wooden fishing boat with motor tied up inside, probably in preparation for coming typhoon.
Further Lessons in Branding
GOO.N – I never really found out what this product was because this display was next to a shelf full of mysterious products at a drug store that I pass by everyday but never bother to look at. Just background noise, you know. But GOO.N caught my eye. The small Japanese subtext says, “goon.”
This photo is significant in that is the last photo I took with my first camera-equipped phone. I bought a new phone today, the Sony A1402S. I’ll write up a review for it on my main blog soon.
Sayonara, Right Wing News
Fox News Channel To Sign Off In Japan
This was inevitable I think. When they changed to paid subscription in the aftermath of the their first announcement of quitting in 2001, I was happy because the option was there to add the channel to my SkyPerfect TV (satellite broadcaster) plan. The thing is, I half think that they must have wanted an excuse (low subscription numbers) to bail entirely, because the monthly fee was set at 1,000 yen. Not a reasonable amount when you consider that CNN and BBC international editions (in English and Japanese) are free with most basic plans.
So I bookmarked channel 740 as a favorite and it showed up every day (except the 20th of every month, when SkyPerfect unlocked all channels as an incentive to subscribe to more channels) as the single black screen in my slideshow channel surfing routine. Every month for the past year, when my statement for the service would arrive I have considered just making the jump and adding Fox News… In fact, I was thinking about it just yesterday, so this sucks in a way – but then again, I’ll never have to think about it again. It’s not even an option. Nice and clean, black and white, oh so Zen in that it Is or Is Not. And now it Is Not. And I am stuck with Japanese news channels, CNN, or BBC.
I want my news “Fair and Balanced.” (Wow, I almost said that with a straight face.) Let me state that a little better: I’m sick and tired of Paula Zahn in the morning asking people if “Abu Grabe” should be a deciding factor in the continuing existence of the universe as we know it and would like to subscribe to an alternate news channel (other than the Beeb since they are just like CNN in, but blimier). However, 500 yen a month is the maximum amount I’d be willing to pay. I only watch TV news when I’m not in the mood for computers or my hands are busy when cooking, etc. 1,000 yen a month is OK only if there are no commercials (and those 5 minute interval splash screens are in the same category as commercials).
Balloon Bombs
Until today, I had always been under the impression that there were no civilian casualties as a result of Japanese attack on the US mainland during WWII. Wrong:
http://slate.msn.com/id/2102499/
Sure, I’d heard of the largely ineffective shelling of oil fields in Santa Barbara, a telegraph station in Vancouver (Canada), and Fort Stevens in Oregon by Japanese submarines, as well as forest fires caused by incendiary bombing done by a sub-launched plane (which were fought by the predecessor of modern smoke jumper batallions, the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion). I’d also read about the balloon bomb project fugo launched on the emperor’s birthday in 1944. However, most of the reports I had read until now lacked in detail regarding effectiveness of these weapons, or simply stated they had caused forest fires in Washington or Oregon.
Starting from the bibliography in the article linked above I will begin researching this subject further as I find it interesting that a minister’s pregnant wife and children could be killed with so little consequence (although the media blackout convinced the Japanese to stop the program, which may haved saved many more lives). Oh, and that the Japanese could have caused a nuclear accident and prevented or delayed the nuking of their own country with paper balloons floated in the airstream. Read the article, it’s a revelation in many ways.