Typhoon "I don't wanna go to school!"

hey all,

So I believe we are now entering the typhoon season, since there is now a typhoon generating lots of rain in the Tokyo/Chiba/Saitama area where I live. It started last night, and hasn't let up all day, and probably won't let up until after the weekend. I'm hoping that that forecast is overly pessimistic, but we'll see. I'm dubbing this typhoon Typhoon I-don't-wanna-go-to-school, because I'm not looking forward to riding my bike in the rain. I guess I mis-read my schedule, and I don't start working until Tuesday, but I still went to Ageo this morning to take care of my bike (making sure it was still there after my 6 week absence, renewing my parking permit, checking tire pressure, etc). Getting up at 6:46 will be a little difficult as well.



Yesterday I hosted my 3rd indoor rock climbing trip. It was really cool. I seem to be able to climb some 5.10 routes. Normally, I max out around 5.9, and the only time that I was been able to consistently do 5.10's was about 10 months after I broke my arm, so I'm climbing better than I've been able to since summer 2005. According to those in the know, in addition to entering typhoon season, we are also entering peak rock climbing season, so supposedly some more experienced outdoor club members will be organizing some outdoor rock climbing trips.

That's all for now.

Cheers,

Some Pictures, At Last

A naginata on display in the Tokyo National Museum. A naginata is a type of Japanese spear with a long sword like point.

A wooden statue called "Old monkey"

The miniature of the Tokyo National Musuem at the World Square.

The actual Tokyo National Musuem in...Tokyo, obviously.

Cheers,

Updates, Part II

hey all,

I just got back from my quick trip into Tokyo to visit Sengakuji, which is a Buddhist temple where the 47 ronin and their lord are buried. It was pretty cool, but there was not too much to see aside from their graves.

I've solved part of the problem of my storage issues. I can now read/write files to my Linux partitions from Windows, and I can access one external HDD (the Ext2 formatted one), but not the other external HDD, for reasons that I cannot quite figure out.

In keeping with my current infatuation with all things Conan (thanks to the game Age of Conan), I've been reading the original stories by Robert E. Howard. They are so old that they are in the public domain, and you can read them at this site.

In other news, yet other comrade in arms has fallen: one of the ALT's that I've been hanging out with a lot is heading back to the US to pursue a law degree. It feels like they are dropping like flies. Best of luck.

Cheers,

Updates

hey all,

It's been a while since I posted anything here. This is somewhat because I've been trying to figure out what to do with my computer. I'm really dissatisfied with my Linux partition, but until now I've been using it as my main repository for movies, music, pictures, and even all my school work going back to high school. Uploading pictures to this site usually means that I have to log on to Linux, which I have come to avoid the way I used to avoid logging on to Windows. For now, there will be no new pictures until I can figure out how to get my Linux files accessible to Windows. Why not just start storing everything on Windows? Space. I have two external hard drives, one formatted in Ext2 and one in Ext3, on which I store almost everything. Most of the space on my Windows partition is taken up by games and by the operating system itself. Once I can get my external HDDs accessible by Windows, then I'll be in the clear.

A possible silver lining to this cloud has appeared in the form of Google OS, which will be released later this year. This will be based on the Linux kernel, like Linux and Apple's OS X, but designed for people who spend a lot of time on the Internet, such as myself. Avid readers will recall that part of my growing dissatisfaction with Linux lately has been my inability to get sound from streaming internet videos, but this seems to be part of a larger problem with the new sound server PulseAudio, which also screws up sound files stored locally on my internal hard drive and cannot keep up with the audio track of video files stored on my external hard drives. I know these are Linux problems because they don't happen at all in Windows.

That out of the way, not too much has been going on that is really worth writing about. I hosted a second indoor rock climbing event, which was really fun. I met a German guy who is an amazing climber and he's been teaching me some new ways to belay and also how to lead climb, which I tried once in the US, but was too freaked out by to try again.

We've had several more Earthquakes that I've felt or been woken up by, but still nothing major.

I started playing my first MMORPG, Age of Conan, which is lots of fun.

I have one week left in my vacation, but I think I might only take one trip into Tokyo to see some more sights related to the 47 ronin.

Cheers,

Busy Busy Busy

hey all,

The last few days have been busy. Thursday, I met up with some ALTs to visit Tokyo National Museum in Ueno. This museum houses a somewhat small permanent collection of pottery, lacquer ware, armor, swords, statues, carvings, and paintings, but it was still quite interesting.

On Friday, I didn't really do too much, but on Saturday, I organized a trip to see a statue of Kannon in Utsunomiya and the Tobu World Square in Kosagoe. As it happened, we missed a train on our way from Kosagoe to Utsunomiya, and weren't able to see the Kannon. I plan on returning to the area to see some more sights in Nikko this fall, so I think I will make seeing the Kannon part of that trip as well.

Then, yesterday, I organized an indoor rock climbing in Tokyo, a bunch of people signed up, but only 5 people came. Still, it was lots of fun and I'm doing the same trip next Sunday as well. Pictures will be coming soon.

Cheers,

Earthquake 3

hey all,

Apparently, there was an earthquake this Sunday that I didn't feel, and there was a third earthquake that woke me up at around 7AM on Thursday, so that makes 3 earthquakes in under a week.

Technically, I think this makes 4 earthquakes that I've been through. There was one in Michigan when I was about 10 or so. I think if you had a house of cards, it would have gotten knocked over, but nothing else would have happened.

Coming from a place that doesn't really get earthquakes, I guess I thought they would be something like the movie Earthquake with Charlton Heston. Of course, that is pretty silly. If every earthquake that occurred were that catastrophic, nobody would live in Japan or anywhere else where they happen with some regularity.

Waiting for the Big One,

Aw, What a Cute Wittle Earfquake You Are!

hey all,

So I woke up around 5AM this morning, not really sure why. Suddenly, I had the sensation that I was in a rocking hammock, or in a boat on a somewhat rough seas. My first (second, technically) Earthquake. As far as I know, nothing was damaged and nobody was killed. The quake's epicenter is the red X in the pic below, and the white dots are the nearby seismic stations: they all registered a 1, but for some reason they have the listed magnitude as 2.9. I suppose the magnitude is on the Richter scale.

Anyway, I'm fine, just a little annoyed at the slight interruption of my sleep.

Cheers,

Feel the Pain

Thanks XKCD! Good to know that another Linux user is suffering too.

Matsuri near Hon-Atsugi

hey all,

Yesterday I ventured out to Hon-Atsugi to attend another outdoor club event. We did a short hike through leech-infested woods (no joke), played frisbee, and saw some massive wooden dragons burned.

First, we had a short hike, and ate lunch and hung out by a small river.

Some leeches try to get my blood.

Part of the river, with a small bridge.

A small field. We played frisbee down there.

After the hike, we started to head bike towards where the festival would be held, but still had lots of time, so we ate some more, did some souvenir shopping, and played frisbee.

Finally, the festival was getting under way. There were some speeches, some songs, dances, festival food and games, and taiko drums.

At long last, the set the dragons on fire, and as they burned down, they set off some fireworks.

The last moments of the two dragons.

Cheers,

Sleep

hey all,

I had a really late night at the bar last night. Hopping from one group of girls to another until 3AM, then back to my pad to crash. This whole week, I've been getting up around 11 or 12. Since I don't have school, and I'm not doing a whole lot, I've been sleeping about half the time. When I got back last night, I fully expected to sleep most of the day away, but instead I wake up at 5:30AM, and can't fall asleep again.

I wasn't sick, only a slight headache and that bar smell to show for a night's worth of imbibing. Already, this bar business feels really old, but on the other hand, I feel like I missed out on this when I was actually in college.

Why would I hop from one group to another, you ask? The first group was left at my table by someone else, like baggage. After talking to them for a while, they turned out to be college students on break, one of whom was actually technically underage (legal drinking age is 20, she was 19). After finding that out it was mostly downhill. Especially after ragging on one of my friends when some of his buddies tried to hook him up with a 19 year old, there was no way I was going to pursue that.

The next one was a group of friends who met in elementary school, some of them proved interesting, and one of them even liked climbing mountains. But most of them had boyfriends, and they had to leave soon after I started talking to them.

The last group was a bunch of staff members who were hanging out and drinking in one of the back rooms. Same deal as before: by now it was almost 2, and most of them had to leave soon, and the rest had boyfriends.

Tomorrow's outdoor trip is in Tanzawa, and there is another one next weekend all the way over on Sado Island. So my plan for today is to recouerate, and I'll probably do my Utsunomiya trip during the week instead, then next weekend go on this Sado island trip.

Cheers,

五ヶ月ぐらい

hey all,

It is hard to believe that I've been here almost 5 months already. I don't think my Japanese has improved much since school break started, at least in terms of new vocabulary and kanji, but I can speak it quite a bit better than before.

It finally looks like the outdoor club is planning some events, and I 've just posted my own trip to Utsunomiya to see that large statue as well. There is also a very cool miniature park another hour north of the statue that looks intriguing. It has 1/25th scale miniatures of lots of famous buildings around the world, for instance the Eiffel Tower, the Forbidden City, Ankor Wat, etc.

Cheers,

Kyoto Afterall?

hey all,

I've started looking into seeing Kyoto this month after all. Although I'd said earlier that I probably wouldn't go, I'm not sure what else to do with all this time. I've seen a lot of the historical stuff that I wanted to see nearby, and watching anime and playing video games all day for the next few weeks would be a waste of my time. As mentioned earlier, the outdoor club hasn't had any activities recently as well, so even my normally busy weekends have been kinda boring lately.

I think about 5 days should be enough to see the major things in Kyoto, and that should even give me enough time for some trips to Lake Biwa, and nearby mountains and outlaying shrines as well.

The weather for next week doesn't look all that promising, so I'm going to look into some closer sights to see. Another ALT just went to see a 72 ft. tall stone statue of Kannon near Utsunomiya, about an hour away, and the pictures I saw look stunning. There are some more caves there as well.

I keep looking for info about climbing, so I can plan a trip, but I can only find detailed info about places that are far away, and even then it isn't that clear or useful.

Cheers,

More on Song of Ice and Fire

hey all,

So I finally finished another read through of GRR Martin's first 3 Song of Ice and Fire books. Concurrently, I've been trying to see when the long awaited 5th book will be published. It is not looking good for this year, but maybe early next year.

After that book, we still have another two novels planned in the series. GRR Martin himself has promised fans not to "pull a Jordan," after the fantasy author Robert Jordan who died before completing his Wheel of Time series. Although that series is now being finished by another author, and will be completed in the next few years, GRRM's writing pace seems to have slowed down a bit, and I doubt I'll see the end of A Song of Ice and Fire before 2020.

Some cool news is that it looks like HBO will be turning at least the first book into a miniseries. They've got some pretty promising talent lined up for the main actors, and I'm really stoked about it.

Something else that is cool is there is a local connection to the series. A company based in East Lansing, MI is currently working with GRR Martin to make official replicas of the swords featured in the books, much as you can get Spartan swords, shields, and spears from 300, or heroes' weapons from the Lord of the Rings movies. They only have one sword available now, but are working to get production started for others.

After spending all night at the karaoke bar Friday night/Saturday morning, I've mostly been relaxing and enjoying reading. There was a festival in Omiya yesterday and today, though it seems like during the summer there is a festival almost every day somewhere in Japan. The outdoor club seems to have quieted down a bit, which is disappointing now that I have all this free time.

Cheers,

Weekend So Far

hey all,

It has been a busy weekend so far, and it's only half done. Last night, one of the outdoor club members organized a movie trip, as she somehow got like 20 free tickets. About 4 of us wanted to see the new Transformers movie, and I was part of that group. First, we all headed over to an Irish pub to get dinner and drink, then went to the theater.

The movie was pretty decent, continuing the pattern established by the first movie of lots of comic relief provided by the parents and Autobots, and lots of humorous sexual innuendo.

After that, I headed back to Omiya, but I had already decided that I'd go out. I picked up some food, since I hadn't eaten at the bar (too expensive). First I stopped by the Hub, but it was thinning out as it was around 1AM. So, I ended up hanging out with Masa and a bunch of people from his building at a karaoke bar. If you've seen Lost in Translation, this is another one of those things that I didn't really believe while I watched it. So this deserves some explanation.

When I think of karaoke bars, I think of a building that looks like a bar, and happens to have a karaoke machine. This type of structure would not work in Japan, because karaoke is too popular. (I also suspect that having a multifunctional space is somehow abhorant.) Instead, there is a warren of small sound proofed rooms, all with karaoke machines. It is all you can eat/drink from 11PM-5AM, for around $25/person.

So you drink, eat, and yes, sing very badly for 5 hours. It was pretty fun.

Cheers,