ダニエルの冒険

The next day we went to Disney Sea. Just to nip this in the bud before any more confusion occurs: Disney Sea is not an aquarium or a Sea World-like place. The only fish there are in the restaurants, and have an bones, skin and organs removed. Think Disneyland with less cartoon characters and a more grown-up atmosphere with great food (the best food in Disneyland is Buzz Lightyear’s pizza). (more…)

This was the first weekend where I had no plans, but I spoke to Yukine, who freed up her Sunday for me, and we decided to go to Disney Sea, as we had been planning! I got the Shinkansen and arrived in Tokyo at about 4pm or so and went to Akihabara to burn some time. I wandered around some electronic shops for a while, playing Playstation 3s (Ridge Racer’s graphics are pathetic, by the way) and watching the final scene of Die Hard 4 on loop on some impractically large televisions. (more…)

Last Wednesday we had written and listening tests, and on Thursday (yesterday) we presented our speeches in front of the class. As such, I was far from prepared for Thursday. I just winged it really, occasionally glancing at the iPod to see what I was supposed to be talking about. As such, I maintained eye contact and was able to make it sound like I wasn’t reading, but that’s about all I succeeded in doing, as my language ended up being a bit too casual for a speech and I wasn’t exactly holding myself properly because I was too focused on putting together the Japanese in my head to think of it. At least that meant that I wasn’t chosen as the representative for our class, a responsibility put onto Shun.

His speech was great though. He wrote it seriously and delivered it seriously, but had one of the teachers crying with laughter. It was about young Japanese women putting on their makeup while they’re on the train, and delivering a fairly absurd speech in such a serious way worked really well. Shun’s a smart guy and I’m sure he’ll do us proud at the contest next Friday. (more…)

I’m just back from eating Fugu! The notorious poisonous pufferfish, with lethal levels of the tetrodotoxin neurotoxin, which remain if incorrectly prepared. Mine was correctly prepared, so I didn’t die, but the meat itself looked pretty scary. It was white with black veins running through it! The meal itself was a bit overpriced (15,000 yen for two) for what it was. The location wasn’t very good and the restaurant wasn’t as classy as I had expected, but just for the fugu it was worthwhile. (more…)

Wednesday is usually a short day for me, since I only have one private lesson and no electives. Today I went for my private lesson and found the classroom, but I had arrived a few minutes early so my teacher wasn’t in the room yet. This particular teacher is the university student who’s been in Ireland. I looked into the room and her bag, coat and books were there on the table. On top of the books, there were two small brown paper bags. I thought to myself, “wouldn’t it be cute if they were Valentine’s Day presents.”

She arrived and greeted me and we sat down and she said “today I have a present for you!” I did my best to act surprised and confused and said “present?” and then she handed me one of the bags and wished me a happy Valentine’s Day. Inside was a pink mochi with a strawberry inside it and two small chocolates. Mochi don’t taste as bad as the wikipedia article sounds. Picture after the jump. (more…)

One of our teachers uses quite round-about ways of introducing grammar and the set-up usually takes half the class. Today she wanted to introduce “even though I thought ~, it was actually~” (〜だろうと思ったが、以外にも〜), which got thrown in there at the end of the lesson. The rest of the class was taken up with personality tests. Here are two. Feel free to post what you came up with and tell me why answers are wrong in the comments. (more…)

I saw this ad on TV recently and thought it was hilarious. This evening Hiroshi sent me a link to the youtube clip and helped me with the transcription and figuring out what some of the words meant. Maybe some other people can get as much enjoyment out of it as I did. I love how Tommy Lee Jones, who I remember from films such as Batman Forever, the Fugitive and Men in Black, is in the middle of cutesy Japanese subculture and loving it. (more…)

I slept longer than usual and had a strange dream where I came back to Limerick for just one day, because I was meeting Yasuko in Cork. My family was in Dublin for the day so I couldn’t meet them but recently Ireland had experienced a Japan craze and girls in Limerick were dressed in pink lacy dresses complete with oversized hats and matching umbrellas, like some girls in Tokyo do. Suddenly I was in Dublin with my grandpa, in Phoenix Park, and a lady was selling something or other and was calling out to possible customers in Japanese. He answered back in Japanese but I couldn’t understand what he was trying to say as he had just started and his vocabulary and grammar were far from natural. I asked why he started learning Japanese and he told me that since there’s so much Japanese TV recently it helped to understand. Perhaps Sumo was taking over from cricket since the craze began? (more…)

Get some tea or warm up the printer. This is a long one. (more…)

I’m going to Osaka tomorrow. My friend mightn’t be able to meet me until Sunday, or possibly Saturday evening if I’m lucky, so I can take my time getting over there. I have a hotel booked, but I have no idea how good it will be. Ratings online were good, and I haven’t yet known the internet to be wrong about anything, so it must be good.

I don’t have any major plans for Osaka but I’ve been told by so many people how great it is so it’ll be nice to see it. I might find Nipponbashi and figure out the trains on Saturday.

Unrelated but worth mentioning, there was a police chase outside the apartment yesterday morning. I heard a bike revving as I left, which is a common sound, but then I heard a siren too. I waited, as I heard it approaching and knew it must be on the road I was on, and a black and red bike drove by, driven by a young man in matching clothes, with a head of bright orange hair. Hope he didn’t get anyone killed.